Heavenly Interruptions

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head and it played and played over in your mind throughout the day? Well yesterday I was singing “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens....brown paper packages tied up with string".....and you know the rest. Yes, Julie Andrews and the Von Trapp family were filling my mind with the song about “favorite things.” I don’t know why it was in my mind, but it made me start thinking about my favorite things. What put a smile on my face? What brought me delight?

Depending on what season of life you are in, your source of delight may vary. “Delight” simply describes something that provokes in you a pleasurable emotion, a sense of deep enjoyment or a high degree of satisfaction. Daily delights are all around us, if we only look. We many times forget that God will use what we take delight in to accomplish His will.

I was talking with a lady not long ago who felt she could only hear God’s voice in the desert, in the dark times. She struggled to hear Him on her day to day journey. At times she felt like He was not even there. She was feeling so discouraged.

Many people assume that an encounter with God can only be experienced through pain and suffering. But there is good news! While trials do teach Christians a great deal, they are not the only catalysts God uses to accomplish His will in our lives! If I have learned nothing else in these past 3 years of walking through my Mother’s cancer journey and through my own health journey it is that God can be found in a valley or on a mountaintop, and every place in between.

One of my favorite verses is Psalm 37:4. It reveals that the Lord speaks as powerfully through pleasure as He does through pain. I am learning to not make the mistake of only listening for God’s voice when disaster hits, or finally reaching out for His hand when there is no place else to turn. Instead I am realizing more than ever that God’s still small voice is in the midst of my daily duties and I have learned to sense His holy presence in places I routinely visit. I have learned to not only be open to God’s surprises but also ready and eager to embrace them. When King David said, “Delight yourself in the Lord,” the object of David’s delight was not a thing: it was the Lord. Learning to delight in the Lord is the completion of the first step toward walking in those holy moments.

Did you know that the bible uses the word “delight” more than 60 times in reference to the Lord? Most of the instances are associated with obeying God’s laws, following His commands, rejoicing in His testimonies. I want to walk in that obedience. I also have realized more than ever that another thing God delights in is prayer. (Prov. 15:8) God has answered some big prayers of mine this year. And I am realizing that those answered prayers are holy moments I often fail to recognize. Has God answered any of your prayers? Then you have already experienced a holy moment of your own as well! As you make prayer a part of your life, don’t forget to be on the lookout for God’s extraordinary response.

It’s easy to find evidence of God in the midst of extraordinary circumstances. It’s not so easy to detect Him during the ordinary events in our lives. And isn’t that where we are most of the time....in the daily ordinary routine of life? We live in the “normal” daily routine where God’s voice many times echos somewhere off in the distance, not thundering from the mountain peaks. That is exactly the reason we need to be sensitive to His quiet voice and gentle leading, to those holy moments we often overlook as we rush madly through our daily routines. God longs to intersect our paths with His heavenly interruptions.

I hope as you go through your normal routine today, that you find many holy moments, and many heavenly interruptions. Look for them! They can show up in the most surprising ways. Enjoy those interruptions! God’s hand prints are all over them, and He delights in sending them your way. He’s already there waiting for you!

Isaiah 65:24 “I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will answer their prayers!”