Oh, how mysterious is God! But oh, how trustworthy the Lord is also.

On a recent day, a day of supposed holiday cheer, I felt inundated with jobs, tasks, interactions, so-called pressing demands. It may have only been six or seven, but it was enough to take me away from my sole responsibility of caring for my son, with my wife at work.

There were three email conversations, WhatsApp messages, a few Messenger interactions, a sermon to prepare and read, along with chores to do. The nature of interruptions is that it doesn’t take much, just a couple of awkwardly timed interactions or tasks, to derail well-intentioned plans.

Interruptions create hustle,

but God interrupts the busyness with creativity.

As I’m dealing with all these interruptions, stressing myself out to boot, I’m dimly aware that my five-year-old craves my attention. He seems so unreasonable doing this. Like a five year old! Like a child who wants and deserves his Daddy. Like a child who wants to share with his father the wonder of playing with mud.

So God speaks. ‘Keep your phone.’ ‘To go outside.’ ‘Now!’

‘Okay, Lord, if you say so… ‘It wasn’t in me to do it on my own, but God pushed me out of the house at the behest of my son…

‘Dad, come and build with me… make mud with me.’

In my mind are all these priorities, needs and desires to handle now as they come. Yeah, I’ve done all the time management courses that tell me not to do this, but…

… no buts… no buts.

So I walk, twenty percent against my own will, but at least I walk.

When I get to within thirty feet of the side door, I see what he’s arranged.

You have a whole construction site set up with six ‘machines’ ready to do the hard work of transporting dirt and material for your building. All machines are lined up ready to go. Everything is ready, the planning and scheduling have been done, but there is one vital source of work that has been delayed: Dad!

He proceeds to describe to me the older machine that he really likes, and also shows the newer and larger machines. I quickly come to an understanding of my role in the ‘building’. I turn the water on and off so that the dirt becomes a mixture that we call “mud”. He arranges his machines so that they can receive their payloads of dirt, and all the dirt ends up in the hopper (aka wheelbarrow).

And God is convincing in showing me His peace by allowing me to absorb myself in the world of my son.

God will interrupt our busyness if we are listening. Truly, if we are attentive to our frustrations, we will see that God is reminding us not only through his still, small voice, but the Holy Spirit is raging through the mounting anger of our disobedience.

Moments of obedience, when we spend time with our children and families, are often fleeting in this life, but they are moments we will never regret. However, managing life’s tasks and demands, even if they seem imperative, will cause us to regret our missed opportunities with our relatives.