Assaults on My Time

I had a different vision for this week.

It hasn't been a bad week; it's just not necessarily what I was hoping for. It's my last few days before I report back for regular classroom duty, and I had plans for myself. They weren't big plans, nor necessarily selfish plans, but they were my plans for my time.

The plans were essentially all for naught. My time was slowly and methodically taken from me, stolen by minor inconveniences, unexpected obstacles, puking children, and the like. Nothing major. No great tragedies. It's as simple as how I expected and hoped to spend my time becoming changed. Or more bluntly, me not getting my way and being on the verge of silly tantrum.

This is further proof that I have paid lip-service but not life-service to the truth that my life and my time are not my own. I find it much easier to see my money as God's money than I do to see my time as God's time. I've got things to do - worthy things, scholarly things, fatherly things, like reading and writing and taking care of my house.

Regardless of how worthy my endeavors are, life is in the obstacles and interruptions. The interruptions are allowed by God, for God's glory. Help changing my character in reaction to these is, more than anything else, what I need and ask for most when speaking of my "daily bread." While the interruptions and interactions that I don't see coming may prove inconsequential to me, they are certainly not inconsequential in terms of eternity. They are an opportunity for me either to contribute to God's will or to stand in stark opposition as I grip my own.

There were mornings this summer when I was interrupted. After my wife got out of bed to go to work, I wanted only one of two things: to fall effortlessly fall back into a dream-filled sleep, or go steal some reading time in my recliner. The only obstacle to this comfortable scenario was my youngest daughter Leah. Some mornings she didn't want to sleep. I'd hear her coming down the stairs, and my soul swelled with anger. Go back to sleep! Don't you know my plans? You're interrupting me! You're going to be tired later. More importantly, you're interrupting me!! I would then furrow my brow, grumble curses into my pillow, and handle the obstacle.

After about the 3rd time that this happened, though, I wised up. All she wanted to do in the mornings when she was awake early was cuddle up into a chair and read with me. Book after book after book, my little 3-year old snuggled into my lap and said, "Another one?" The interruption to my selfish desires turned out to be far better, for both her and me, than any of my plans.

Some day, far down the road, I'll be sitting in that chair, book in hand, doing exactly what I have planned, hoping for the interruption of tiny footsteps coming down the stairs to jump into my lap. Until that day, I'll keep working harder to open my mind and my heart to the great possibilities in life's interruptions.