I’m one who takes pride in managing my schedule. If you ask me, Microsoft Outlook is a wonderful tool of ministry! I like to have all of my appointments, prep time, meetings, planning, study, Sabbath play, and family events laid out nice and neat on the computer screen in front of me. But life and ministry is always so nice and neat, is it?
The great 20th Century theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote:
“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God. God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions. . . . it is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God.”
Have you ever considered that your schedule is God’s to arrange? Look at your calendar for the coming week. Is there room in it for God to interrupt? If God did interrupt, how would you react? With frustration or grace?
Wisely managing our schedule is an important task for any ministry leader. But let’s not forget God is the ultimate manager of what happens in the days marked out on our calendars. May we always have the discernment to recognize God’s interruptions.
Grace to you,
Steve Ebling
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