Interrupted

For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

1 Timothy 6:7

Our life is given to us; it is not something we can create on our own. Our responsibility is how we will use the life that has been given to us. We can only be responsible for our own life. We can take what God has given us and dedicate it again to Him. At the end of our life, we will give it all back to God, but in the meantime, we have the privilege of being caretakers of what God finds most precious in all the world - ourselves.

You often don’t realize what you’ve assumed until you lose it.

When we lose a job, relationship or health, we realize life isn’t what we thought it would be. Life is harder than we imagined. Yet in the midst of life being hard, God wants to join us in our struggles. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21). We often build up a pattern for our lives and let it run without thinking about it much until our pattern gets interrupted. When our pattern of life gets interrupted - and it will get interrupted at some point - we have to react to the present “evil” in a way that is new to us.

Ministry happens in the interruptions.

We never plan for interruptions, but those are the greatest opportunities God gives us to tell others about Him. Joseph’s plans were interrupted by being sold into Egypt. Mary’s plans were interrupted when the Angel Gabriel told her she was going to have a son. The disciple’s plans were interrupted when Jesus called them to follow Him. Saul’s plans were interrupted when God met him on the road to Damascus. No matter who you are, everyone’s plans have been interrupted in the past and they will get interrupted again at some point in the future. The only question is how will we use that interruption in our life? Joseph used his interruption to save nations. Mary used her interruption to raise Jesus. The disciples used their interruption to serve Jesus. Paul used his interruptions to spread the gospel of Jesus. How have we used our past interruptions, and how will we use our future interruptions? We cannot decide when or how our lives will be interrupted, we can only decide how we will use that interruption.

Everyone is enculturated.

Everyone is born into a specific country, society, family and personality. Does this mean that some system is unfair for giving us a different hand than someone else was dealt? No, that is simply how life works. We are not equal in every aspect of life, but we are equal in our value to God. When we focus on that equality, all other inequalities become insignificant. Life is given to us, and we often don’t realize what we have assumed about life until our life gets interrupted. We cannot change the past that has been handed to us, but we can use the experiences of the past to bring glory to God in the present  as we say look at what God has done to get us here.