Recognizing Divine pauses

I was talking with my friend Becki Parr a while back and she said something that stuck with me. She said that she had been praying for pauses in her day. Moments where she can breathe and reflect and connect with God or someone else and recognize that her time, her agenda don't belong to her. I had several of those moments today. But I didn't recognize them. I was too busy fuming about the accident on the freeway and the train schedule in front of the school. I didn't really recognize them for what they were until much later. Everyday we have moments where our "best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Those moments are our chance to breathe, to surrender, to pray and to say "Ok, Lord, my agenda isn't always in line with your agenda. Give me eyes to see and a willingness to stop and see the blind man begging along the road as you did. A willingness to stop and listen, no matter what other people demand of me. Let me never take my agenda so seriously." 

Honestly, I didn't do that today. I missed seeing them for what they were. So my prayer tonight is, "Lord, let me not take my agenda so seriously. Give me gratitude for those pauses, and eyes to see that even those annoying events are my chance to see that you need me to stop, and to surrender. Forgive my sense that my time is so important I can't get off schedule." Ministry often happens in those interruptions that are not in my schedule. When my baby or my friend need me at the most inconvenient times. I need grace to surrender my plans to His. Sometimes my hardness of heart in these moments makes me grieve that I miss God's purpose for me in the moment. I guess that's why I need to be told, to be reminded that "God causes ALL THINGS to work together for good for those that love Him. For those who are the called according to His purpose." Sigh. And so I offer up a prayer of repentance and surrender.