“Commit your way to the Lord …” Psalm 37:5

When I worked at a library, I dealt with many customer enquiries. After I’d finished, I sometimes couldn’t remember what I was doing before the interruption. As a parent, I found myself in a similar situation. In the middle of doing something, a child would need my attention. After dealing with their demands, I found myself wandering around the house saying, “Now, what was I doing?”

Likewise in our Christian walk, we’re interrupted. We commit ourselves to read a daily devotion or a Bible reading plan or to pray through a list. Then something unexpected happens which interrupts us. We get behind in our daily readings or forget who we were praying for. We seem unable to catch up or to return to it with the same vigour and often feel a sense of guilt about it.

Jesus had occasions when his plans were interrupted. Following the death of John the Baptist, he wanted to be alone and withdrew to a solitary place but the crowds followed him. Instead of having time to grieve and be with his Father he fed the crowd of five thousand people (Matthew 14:13-14). However interruptions didn’t bother Jesus, he simply moved onto the next task God had for him.

We cannot plan for interruptions, but we can remember to commit our ways to the Lord. Sometimes in my life, God has allowed interruptions to make me realise my commitment to him is more important than a commitment to a particular Christian discipline—no matter how beneficial that discipline might be. By committing our ways to God, interruptions will still come but we don’t need to feel guilty about getting behind because we know he is Lord, even the Lord of interruptions.