The Interruptions of Life

I was driving my family down the road the other day in our family SUV that is less than a year old. I really like this vehicle. We were driving down to Waco to celebrate my uncle’s 80th birthday. I count it a blessing to have so many aunts, uncles and cousins who are serving the Lord and have done so for many years. Anyway, on the road to this epic celebration, the windshield of my ‘newish’ vehicle was assaulted by rock debris from a big truck in front of me. The first ding wasn’t too bad, but as I drove up in anger to pass him, I was dinged with a bigger star. Let’s just say I didn’t handle the situation great. I’m just glad no one was watching me. Well, actually, my wife, my daughter, my mom, and well, God was watching me. It wasn’t my finest hour.

It’s interesting how the smallest things can reveal the true state of our hearts. I was talking to a friend last night at an event about how sanctifying children can be in one’s life. When things are going smoothly we can think we have a wonderful disposition and are filled with all the fruit of the Spirit and even a refreshing smoothie on the side. It often doesn’t take much to awaken ourselves from the imaginary fiction we have created in our own minds about how good we are.

I love what C.S. Lewis writes about the interruptions of life. We think our big dreams and great plans are life, but the truth is, real life is the ‘day-to-day.’ Real life is how we treat our family and our friends, maybe, cringe, even our enemies. Cracked windshields aren’t interruptions. They are real life. May Christ continue to make us more like Him.

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or one’s ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls interruptions are precisely one’s real life — the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s real life is a phantom of one’s imagination.” (C.S. Lewis)