Being thankful for interruptions

How do you handle interruptions? Do you welcome them with open arms? Or, do you detest them? It happens to all of us. We are in the middle of saying or doing something, and in the process we are interrupted. What do we do? Do we carry on and ignore what interrupted us? Or, do we stop and deal with it? Let’s find out what Jesus did when He was interrupted?
According to Mark’s recollection, the day began on the west side of Lake Galilee. Already a large crowd had gathered. They came to meet Jesus face to face and to hear what He had to say. They came to Him from near and far, as they did on many other occasions, because he spoke with authority – He knew what He was talking about; He spoke with power, He meant what He said and said want He meant; He spoke their language and they understood Him.
More to the point, He spoke concerning the kingdom He came to establish – not a kingdom with kings and castles, tanks and ammunition, as the people of His time were expecting, but a kingdom which promoted deeds of love and mercy and cultivated healthy relationships. This was His God-given message, and He did not deviate from it. Moreover, He asked His disciples to pray for this kingdom and become active members of it.
Right in the middle of this public gathering that day, a leader from the local Synagogue appeared out of nowhere, and told Jesus about his twelve year old daughter who was very sick. “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” In the middle of His talk, Jesus was interrupted. Picture this if you will, our Lord is addressing a large gathering and a man interrupts. What did Jesus do? He stopped speaking, that’s what He did, and off He went with the father leaving the crowd behind. As they were fighting their way through the crowd, our Lord was confronted with a woman who had a severe case of bleeding. A second interruption. It’s one thing to interrupt a talk, but how could He ignore a person who is suffering, such as this woman was, even though He was on His way to care for a 12 year old on her deathbed?
How would you like to be the father of that sick girl? I can almost hear him saying – “Master, my daughter is dying, I need your help now, don’t delay any longer.” And Jesus responded – When He arrived at the house, “He took her by the hand and said to her –‘little girl, I say to you get up.’ Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around.”
How do you handle interruptions? We all experience them! I am not simply referring to interruptions when we are talking. I am referring to interruptions, when we are involved in something important [at least, we think it’s important], and the phone rings, someone drops in unexpectedly, you are called away, someone is ill, a family member needs you, a friend is in serious trouble, you received the results from a recent test. All of a sudden you are interrupted, your life is interrupted. How do you handle such interruptions? Do you respond to them, or do you ignore them? Here is what a senior professor at the University of Notre Dame once said to a friend – “My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that my interruptions were my work”..
”How do we handle interruptions? Do we think of them as a nuisance, interfering with our agenda? Or, do we look at them as opportunities to respond to a human need, or a hopeless situation? How many times have we said to our children – please, don’t interrupt, or, you are interrupting again. Only to discover later, that these were opportunities, chances of a lifetime, to hear our children tell us a story, to share with us a concern, an opportunity to build a relationship with them. How do you handle interruptions?
There is another point worth noting in this story within a story. “At once Jesus knew that power had gone out of Him, so He turned around in the crowd and asked – ‘who touched my clothes? The disciples said to Him, ‘you see the crowd pressing on you; how can you say, who touched me?” If the bleeding had stopped and the woman was healed, why didn’t our Lord keep going to save the little girl? Instead, He took the time to talk with the woman. He felt power go out of Him, just as you and I are exhausted –when we listen intently, when we care enough, when we pray for someone else, when we feel someone else’s pain, power is used up and we feel drained. So it was with our Lord – someone in the crowd was healed and He wanted to know who the recipient was, not because He was nosy, He wanted to have a further conversation with that person. The result was – the woman experienced not only a healing of body, but she also gained peace of mind.
I believe it was this kind of ministry on the part of Jesus that encouraged people to come to Him by the hundreds, because they trusted Him, they had faith in Him and they were not afraid to interrupt Him when they needed Him. Likewise, great and wonderful things can and will happen today, when you and I are authentic, when we are approachable, when we follow up, when we learn the difference between having our work interrupted and discover that these interruptions may be our real work.