The essence of my Christmas Day sermon was tailored at telling us God is in the business of disrupting lives. When He does so, it is not convenient and always at variance with our comfort and desires. The preacher referenced Mary-the mother of Jesus who was looking forward to a simple, uncomplicated life and marriage until God disrupted her plans and thrust her into the public eye of controversy and motherhood before she was ready. Joseph- her husband whose life was also disrupted as his first child wasn’t his and his birth led to the whole family going into exile for a while.
The preacher spoke of David whose path to kingship was fraught with envy, jealousy, war, exile and threats. Paul, who became a laughing stock and later an object of hatred from his kinsmen. In short, from the Old to the New Testament everyone God called faced some disruption of some kind in the plans they had lain out for themselves.
He told us to expect disruptions in our lives if we wanted to walk with God in the New Year and warned that not all disruptions were pleasant.
There’s so much written about disruptions in the workplace and personal lives and I don’t want to belabor the point. I would rather tell you, what went through my mind as the preacher was speaking that Sunday. As he spoke, I wondered what would be termed a disruption in my life. After all, there would never be a virgin birth again. The Bible has been written. David has slain Goliath and there are no more physical giants in the land and as I pondered, my mind went to the Good Samaritan.
For those who are not familiar with the story. A man was robbed, beaten and left for dead on the street. Two religious leaders passed by after the attack, saw him and hurried past presumably to their religious duties, after all the congregation or even God was waiting for them. Then came a Samaritan, described by Jews as enemies of God and it was this man who turned aside, tended to the man’s wounds, carried him on his donkey and took him to an inn, paid for his care and then went his way.
Then my thoughts wandered to two men I follow on Facebook, both of them creatives, single and very in tune with disruptions of the Good Samaritan kind. Both of them in looks would resemble the Samaritan. The types religious people think God would be offended with. Perhaps because of the way they look by their professions and write-ups- Kyrian Chiemelie Offor and Jude Idada.
On several occasions, these men have disrupted their journeys to listen to a small still voice that tells them to take a second look at someone on the road that needs help. Most times, the need is obvious like the wounded man in the story and at times the need is more physiological than physical but they usually heeded the still small voice asking that they interrupt their plans to help a fellow human.
The duo never cease to amaze me because I am a very inflexible person. Once I make a plan, I stick by it. If sometimes I hear that small voice, I tend to argue and doubt it. I don’t generally go by my intuitions when it comes to people but their stories make me crave that readiness to be sensitive to God and flexible in His hands.
The more I pondered on all these, the more I am convinced that we need to disrupt our journeys to accommodate people that need us. They may or may not be strangers. It could be that little child ( not necessarily ours) that needs attention, a soothing hand, it could be someone who has lost a loved one, someone who needs to talk and unburden themselves, someone who needs encouragement of some sort or someone who needs money.
The truth is God will never to earth to physically to help us but He has sent us to one another; to care for each other, to be there for one another. The world is getting darker, the more advanced we have become, the more lonely and desolate we are and the more people are leaving this earth without notice.
This New Year, I pray that we allow God to disrupt our lives that He may bless others through us and what He does through us He will do for us. So make that call, reach out to that person you thought about, look around you, follow your heart and that still small voice, there just may be a wounded soul on your way,
Stop, care, love, embrace.
Have a blessed and meaningful New Year.