“But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like launderers’ soap.” Malachi 3:2

Life Interrupted

Make no mistake: God will interrupt our lives. He gets to do this because He is, well, God.

There was a time when my husband was taking odd jobs to make ends meet for our large family. We ate off-brand foods, wore off-brand clothes or hand-me-downs, drove only one car, canceled unnecessary services, and never traveled or vacationed, all to stretch our meager resources. We sensed God’s presence as we dug deep in our spirits to find genuine faith. Then God made His presence known. Someone anonymously left us a large check, and we breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t because our problems were solved—it was because God touched us in such an obvious way. He was there, He cared, He lived up to His Name—Provider—and we had the testimony to prove it.

Our comfy lives had been interrupted by poverty for a time—and then God interrupted the poverty by provision. Looking back all those years ago, I can say that it’s a good thing we experienced that time of leaning on Him so hard. We need Him to interrupt us when we are living by our own strength. As John Piper suggests, God “broke our back of pride and self-reliance,” just as He did with Jacob, and Paul, Jonah, and so many others. We didn’t know we needed it until He arranged for it. But that’s how God works!

In Acts 10, a devout Gentile named Cornelius was praying. He feared God, fasted, had a good reputation, and gave to the poor—and God interrupted his prayer. There is no record of what he was praying about, but God interrupted him with a vision about finding a man named Peter and bringing him to his home. At the same time, God interrupted Peter’s life. He, too, had a vision (three times—presumably because he rejected it at first!) in which God spoke to him and explained a new concept to him. The concept was, in my own words, a “better way to love.” Suddenly some men showed up, asking him to come to Cornelius’s house.

Two believers’ everyday lives were interrupted by God at the same time for the same purpose, namely, so that Cornelius could hear Peter tell them the things of God, and then many more would hear and be saved.

God’s ways aren’t our ways. We can think of a hundred different ways God could have gotten them both on track with His purposes. But His way is perfect, perfectly wise, accomplishing a perfect will, to achieve perfection (maturity) in us.

“Lord, may we submit to Your interruptions, knowing that You always have a reason for what You do. Your purposes concerning us are good, and we need not fear. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”