Death to Interruptions! – Monday Morning Momentum
Windy, Bendy Roads
If you’re not a mom, stick with me for a moment. We’re driving down a road that’s required us to make 50 course corrections an hour and you’ll appreciate it about halfway through this post.
My wife is in the middle of an amazing transition where God is forging in her heart a fresh desire to lead and train up our youngest three children for a season. They’re 2-1/2, 2-1/2, and 4 (next week). It’s amazing to watch her grapple with scripture in her very Berean way – searching the Word to see if what the Spirit has told her is true: “You’re called to care for and train these kids.” Amid her research in this lifestyle shift, she often encounters blogs, columns, and talks where weary and harried mothers of multiple toddlers and school age kids vent their frustration over how their kids are a “drain”, an “inconvenience”, etc. They’re frazzled: emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted, with no immediate hope of relief.
Cristine responds: “I can relate to them. But, I’m choosing joy.” We discussed what this meant and I’ll share my synopsis of it below. But, right now, you’re wondering:
You and I share something very simple in common. Even with my ADD tendencies, I can’t stand interruptions. As Cristine shares some of the “frazzled Mom” comments with me from her research, I can’t help but notice a common thread that all of the moms share: they see their kids as an “interruption”.
But, if I were focusing on my kids all day long (which I occasionally do), how can the point of my focus interrupt me from the point of my focus? Exactly. What we’ve observed with so many moms (and how this relates to you, even if you’re not a mom) is that most of them have been focused on themselves all day long, hoping their kids would give them a break. So, when their kids make noise, screams, damage, diapers, etc., those things weren’t their focus, therefore they’re interrupted.
My phone is often the worst. Texts, tweets, updates, reminders, and [God forbid] actual phone calls, come with no warning. Unless the point of my focus is “watch your phone all day for signs of life”, these things are, by nature, an interruption. It’s really a matter of my agenda being interrupted. I planned to do my stuff in my time in my order the way I like to get things done and anything that gets in the way becomes an enemy to my agenda.
Here’s the tough part. I think you might be expecting me to give you some simple solution for stress free living. And, I might. But, it might be at a much higher cost than you had planned. As I’m reading the gospels, Jesus tells me in three of them that I’m ignoring the cost of discipleship: a bad mindset.
“Peter, I love you, but Satan has fooled you into believing your agenda is more important than mine. Bad mindset, my friend. You’re an interruption to God’s agenda.”
Bottom line: God is sovereign over phone calls, text messages, messy diapers, sibling arguments, senior management initiatives, conference calls, emergency meetings, etc. When I have my mind set on God’s interests, not man’s [read: mine], God is the point of my focus and His “interruptions” aren’t really interruptions… rather, they’re the point of my focus.
As we take a day off of labor for Labor Day, let’s keep ourselves aligned with His mindset, die daily to ourselves, and carry our crosses. This is the true cost of discipleship, the cost of following the Master, the basic blocking and tackling of the Christian life – abide.
in Christ,
AP