Day 23 of 50

READING GUIDE:

• Read today's devotion below.
• During days 22-28 (at your own pace) read chapters 11 thru 16 from Joining Jesus on His Mission.
• After days 22-28, meet with your small group and follow the back-of-the-book discussion guide for SESSION 4.

"Seek first the kingdom of God..." (Jesus in Matthew 6:33 ESV)

Finke writes in chapter 12, "Are you sometimes irritated by the people who interrupt your day? I know I can be. Maybe now is a good time to stop seeing such moments as interruptions and start seeing them as appointments...appointments set up by God without consulting us...Wherever you go, there you are, and wherever you are, Jesus is already up to something. Therefore, coincidences become God-incidences. Good luck becomes God's anonymous provision. Bad luck becomes God's redirection of our plans."

So here is my "interruption" story...

On one summer night I was in a lousy mood, crabby and didn't want to be around anyone.  I was at my worst and was really behaving like a jerk.  My son wanted to play with me and I refused multiple times.  Embarrassing.  I only wanted to my own thing and didn't want any interruptions. Then my son wore me down enough to get me to begrudgingly play with him, his friend and his dad.  While the boys were running around, his friend's dad began to open up about some tough stuff going on in his life and even shared something like, “I'm not sure why I'm telling all of this to you.”  I was most surprised. It pretty much shocked the jerk out of me. I listened and with the Lord's help and power showed the love of Jesus to this hurting man. This "interruption" unbeknownst to me was a God-incident. It is when the jerk shocked out of me when God opened my eyes and helped me to get over myself and seek His kingdom first.

What God-incident, first interpreted as an interruption, have you experienced in your life? How may you pray to God to open your eyes to seek His kingdom first?