Interruption?
Readiness and Willingness to Be Interrupted for the Sake of the Gospel
There have been many occasions where I have tried to remind myself & encourage us as a church about having a “good theology of interruption,” meaning that we are willing to have moments that seem like an interruption in our plans to be an accomplishment towards fulfilling our part in God’s plan.
While at IMPACT, I had to head back to Walmart to get this same computer part (that I could have easily gotten the day before). I get to the aisle to quickly grab what I’m looking for and get going, but quickly I am “interrupted” by the voice of a young man asking me if I could see a “micro-HDMI” anywhere in front of us. I had no idea why he felt the need to ask me rather than the Walmart employee 3 aisles over, but I quickly realized why he asked me.
About a minute into our interaction, Wiley found out that I was a follower of Christ. I immediately asked Wiley, “Are you involved with church anywhere? What are your thoughts on Jesus?”
Wiley shares with me that has questions for God because he had prayed about horrible situations happening & his prayers were never being answered. He couldn’t understand how God would allow them to stay in this situation. I affirmed that his questions were legitimate and his suffering real, but there is no other belief system that will help you actually have hope in suffering other than faith in Jesus.
I spend the next 25 minutes asking him follow-up questions, answering his questions to the best of my ability, and talking about the Scriptures and Christ. I told Wiley that sometimes what needs to happen is not that we disregard God’s existence or a relationship with him because of our expectations of him not being met. Rather, we need to give God an opportunity to reveal himself to us for who He really is through His Word. I shared the Gospel with him by telling him the big story of Scripture centered on Jesus, which seemed like something completely new to Him.
At the end I asked Wiley, “Are you willing to give God a chance to reveal you to who He really is?” He said, “Yes!” I encouraged him to read the Gospel of John, to send me any questions he has. Furthermore, I asked him to read a Psalm a day for the next 150 days and to write down what He learns about God from Psalms. I prayed with Wiley, got his phone number, and walked away with gratitude and joy. Why? I needed to be reminded that divine appointments often require what seem to be untimely interruptions.
Love you, church!
Pastor John
