Interruption or Invitation?

When our sons were younger, I would play with them after dinner until it was time for bed. One night, after they were in bed, I started doing something that had to get done. After a few minutes, one of our twins called out from his room, “Dad, will you bring me a glass of water?” I answered, “You’re fine. Just go back to bed.” About 5-minutes later, he called out again, “Dad, will you bring me a glass of water?” A little more frustrated, I replied, “Just please go back to sleep.” After another 5 minutes, he called out again, “Dad, will you bring me a glass of water?” Well, at this point, I lost it. I was really tired of being interrupted from my very important business. So, very annoyed, I yelled, “You just had water before you went to bed. Now go to sleep, and if you ask again, I’m going to come up there and spank you.” Then after a few minutes, he called out, “Dad, when you come up here to spank me, will you bring me a glass of water?”

I don’t know about you, but I really dislike interruptions. It frustrates me to no end and it throws me into this bizarre state of irritability. (And I know that this is something that I struggle with and have to work on every day of my life.) But I don’t think that I’m alone in this. I’m guessing that many of us are not fond of being interrupted. Whether it’s people bugging us when we’re in the middle of something, someone calling us while we’re streaming a movie or constantly texting our mobile phones so that those little notification sounds keep going off, or our kids always tugging at us for something. Ugh! Interruptions are frustrating!

And if that’s not bad enough, it seems that these always tend to come at the worst possible time. Am I right or am I right?

Just look at our readings today. In the first reading, Jonah goes to Ninevah to tell the people that their city is going to be destroyed and that they need to change their lives and reorient themselves toward God. They didn’t have to listen to him. They could have ignored his invitation to repent and turn away from evil. They could have written him off as some doom and gloom prophet. But instead, they embraced the interruption, realizing that something had to change in the way they were living.

We see something similar in the Gospel. Simon and Andrew were minding their own business, fishing like they did every day. Suddenly, Jesus appears and interrupts them. And instead of continuing to do what they were doing and live the way they were living; they made an important change in their lives by accepting the interruption and following Jesus.

Well, you’re probably thinking, “That’s really nice, Deacon Allen. But how does this help us in how we deal with all the interruptions in our lives?”

Maybe we start by changing our way of thinking. (And yes, I’m also speaking to myself here.) Maybe we need to stop thinking of interruptions as something negative – but instead, something positive. Maybe we need to stop thinking ‘interruption’ and start thinking ‘invitation.’ Maybe our interruptions are actually divine invitations – or an opportunity when God is presenting us with a new direction, a new insight, or a new path to discover. Maybe a divine invitation is God’s way of interrupting our lives to offer us something better.

And there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that God interrupts us every single day. But the question is, do we recognize the interruption?

When we are interrupted by God, it usually means that he wants us to stop thinking about ourselves. God wants to reveal something about his plan for our lives – a plan that involves looking to God throughout our day and trusting God with everything that we do. And we can’t do that when we’re only looking within.

Let me ask you this: When you’re driving somewhere in your car and you’re not exactly sure how to get there, what do you do? You put the address or destination in your GPS, and you trust that it will get you there. And if you accidentally miss a turn or head in the wrong direction, what text usually appears on the screen? “Recalculating.”

It’s the exact same scenario in our lives. What if God is using these interruptions to recalculate our direction so we can head down a different path – the path that God wants us to take in that very moment of our lives? Maybe our interruptions are really invitations when God will reveal more of himself to us or through us.

How do we take advantage of this? By using our GPS – or what I call God’s Positioning System. It means to rearrange our priorities and reorient our lives around Jesus. It means to be a disciple: to drop our nets, to do as Jesus did, to serve as Jesus served, and to love as Jesus loved. How do we recalculate and turn our lives around for the better?

First, we need to make our relationship with God our top priority. We do this by engaging in spiritual practices such as going to Mass, praying, and reading spiritual books and the Bible. When we do these things, we disrupt the normal patterns of our lives and make more space for God. Maybe that means interrupting our time on social media, playing video games, or watching videos on Tik Tok. If we want to become more acquainted with Jesus, we must make the time to be with Jesus.

We can also choose to live more simply. It’s the start of a new year. I’m not big on resolutions, but perhaps it’s time to de-clutter our lives so we can focus on what really matters, because the most important things in life aren’t things. We need to simplify our lives by reminding ourselves that when we eliminate the needless wants of life, the labors of life reduce themselves. When we clear things away, especially those things that distract us, we can be more receptive to what God is offering us. Remember, it’s not about what we’re holding onto, but who is holding onto us.

And lastly, we need to live like a disciple. This means to follow Jesus at all times – even when we’re being interrupted – because it could very well be an invitation. Is God calling us to something, or are we being called away from something? Are we being called into the service of others? Is it time to let go of the predictable or the familiar and finally take that leap of faith? Can we drop the nets in our lives, or those things that weigh us down or hold us back (e.g., anxiety, stress, greed, addictions, bad relationships, etc.)? Are we willing to make a change in our lives so that we can grow closer to Christ? Can we trust and believe that God has a better plan for us?

My sisters and brothers, as St. Paul said in the second reading, time is running out. God is inviting us today to encounter him in a whole new way. Therefore, we need to make a change, drop our nets, recalculate, turn our lives around, and head in the right direction so we can be different than we were before.

The next time we’re interrupted from what we view as ‘our very important business,’ let’s not react negatively, but embrace the possibility that God is waking us up to a divine invitation to something better. And an invitation from God is the best interruption we could ever receive.

What exactly are you looking for? Find out here.