April 19

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

            Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”  He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside him.

Acts 8:26-31

           

             I am a huge fan of strategy and plans.  My days are mapped out; I have a clock ticking in my head and alerting me to what is next on the schedule.  It is a character trait that serves me well in my administrative roles and when I sit down to write.  And it is a character trait that God will sometimes laugh at and throw out the window.

            The word of God comes to Philip and tells him to start walking south.  No destination is given; no indication of what he is looking for or why he is walking out into the wilderness.  He is just told to go.  As he is walking he comes across a foreigner who is trying to figure out scripture, specifically a prophetic passage from Isaiah about the coming Messiah.  Philip is uniquely qualified to answer his questions and so they talk; the Ethiopian believes and becomes a Christian there on the spot.  In some circles an interaction like this is known as a Divine Appointment.

            Divine Appointments are seemingly random meetings, orchestrated by God, drawing together two lives that would never have touched each other in normal circumstances.  God brings people together for encouragement or exhortation or healing or partnership.  Have you ever sat on a plane or a bus and the person who sat next to you was exactly who you needed to talk to?  Have you ever had a prayer answered by someone that you randomly ran into in the grocery store or at the movies?  Coincidence is the world’s label for Divine Appointments.

            We miss a lot of Divine Appointments throughout our lifetime because we are not looking for them.  When I go to the grocery store I am focused on getting everything on my list, not talking with a stranger about what God is doing in their life.  I have a plan for my day and my time and I do not like to have it interrupted.  Imagine if the Ethiopian had turned away Philip because he was too busy in his allocated “personal study time” to talk to a stranger. He would never have found the answers he was looking for.

            We must be interruptible.   We must be willing to have our daily plans change so that there is the possibility of God injecting something miraculous into our day.  Otherwise we run the risk of missing out on some amazingly unexpected gifts.

            We also need to be interruptible for our kids.  I know that it can feel like all they ever do is interrupt us and we never get any time to ourselves or chances to do things that we enjoy doing.  For a season that will probably be true.  I have actually changed what I do for leisure so that I am not so upset when my kids come to interrupt me.  I used to play guitar, but whenever I would strum a chord, my son would run to whatever room I was playing in and ask me to stop.  I don’t know if the sound hurt his ears or not, but I stopped.  Same with when I played piano or recorder.  I may take up playing instruments again someday, but for now I would rather invest in him than in a hobby.

            I love playing video games, but there are several of my favorite games that are not suitable for young minds and imaginations so those have left my house.  Mostly I play things that I can drop at a moment’s notice and not be angry about.  I don’t read a lot deeply engaging fiction because I get so annoyed when I have to stop and start over and over again with my reading.  So I am setting it aside for a season while the kids are in their prime interrupting years.  This makes the overall mood of the house lighter and helps the kids and I avoid unnecessary tension when they interrupt…which they inevitably do.

            I still make plans and lists and enjoy structure and spreadsheets.  I just recognize that for the next season interruptions will be a consistent part of my days.  I can be angry about that or I can look for what God is saying and doing and enjoy the divine surprises that come my way.

           

A moment to reflect:

How can you prepare yourself to be interrupted today?