Embracing Your Interruptions
OPINION —
A young man and woman were in love and wanted to get married. The young man asked her father for his blessing. The man told him, “Before I can give you my blessing, you have to pass the test.” The young man wanted to know, “What is the test?” The man replied, “Come to our farm on Saturday morning and you’ll find out.”
He showed up at the farm on Saturday morning. His fiancée’s father told him, “The test is simple. I am going to run three animals at you, one at a time. All you have to do is grab the tail of one of those animals and you’ll receive my blessing.”
The first animal out of the chute was a cow—only it wasn’t the meandering type—it was in a gallop and was raising back on its hind legs. The young man thought he could probably grab its tail, but he didn’t want to take the chance of getting knocked down and hurt. He looked at the man and said, “Pass.”
The man nodded and out of the chute came the second animal, a dog running straight toward him at full speed. The young man couldn’t tell if it was friendly or ferocious and he didn’t want to take the chance, so he looked at the man and said, “Pass.” He knew he was down to his last animal, but he also knew there wasn’t a bull on the farm, and he couldn’t think of anything else that might pose a problem. He decided the test was probably about him being smart enough to wait it out and get an easy animal. He was pleased he had waited.
Sure enough, out of the chute hobbled an old cat. The young man looked over at his fiancée’s father to let him he was good with this animal. But when he did, he saw the man was already looking at him and had a big grin on his face. The young man was confused until the cat came closer and he realized—it didn’t have a tail!
The moral of the story is if you’re waiting for the perfect opportunity before you act, you’ll be waiting a long, long time. And, while you’re waiting, you’ll let some important opportunities pass that you will later regret.
When the church at Jerusalem was scattered because of persecution, Luke tells us, “Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went” (Acts 8:4). Rather than see themselves as victims or spend all their time and energy trying to return to Jerusalem, they saw what had happened to them as an opportunity to reach out to the people around them with the good news of Jesus. They had an opportunity outlook. They didn’t wait until everything in their lives was perfect.
Our lives move to a different level when we embrace our interruptions and think about how they might be used for God. I doubt if being scattered was on anyone’s list of things to do, but those disciples thought about how it could be used for God and kingdom things started happening.
What interruptions do you need to embrace?
Find more of Bruce’s writings at his website: a-taste-of-grace-with-bruce-green.com.
