sorry for the interruption!

I’ve been learning a lot from my roommate’s cat.

Like what my biggest pet peeve is.

Being interrupted.

Kuvo the cat is crazy to the point of possibly being possessed, and he often gets into trouble while us girls are talking. I will be pouring out words to my friend and then all of a sudd—

“KUVO, STOP IT!”

The thin twine of trust I tie between me and the person I’m talking to snaps in the middle. It’s risky to continue the conversation. It’s broken and I don’t think I can risk putting it together again. That string was a direct line to my soul and now it burns from this tiny whiplash of rejection because they thought the cat was more important than what I had hidden in my heart.

I try not to take things like this personally, but I do. I am a jealous person. I don’t mean to be overdramatic, but as a human, I need to be wanted, especially in conversation.

Sometimes God interrupts our lives too. We ask, “God, what are you doing? I wanted to graduate in four years.” Or, “God, why did you let him leave me?” Or, “God, I needed to get that job.”

Does he really care what I want if he just keeps changing the conversation?  

Let’s first remember that God is completely different than us.

“I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” Isaiah 55:8

God is in the past, with you as you read this, and already ahead in our future. He has plans for us that are above our understanding, so it makes sense that every once in a while He will do things in our lives that just don’t make sense. But we do have this in common, though:

We get jealous.

“Don’t worship any other god. God—his name is The-Jealous-One—is a jealous God.” Exodus 34:14

But God’s jealousy is much different than ours. Humans tend to get jealous about things that aren’t ours. But God only gets jealous about things that belong to him—like us. And He deserves our undivided attention.

“We don’t deserve praise! The Lord alone deserves all of the praise, because of his love and faithfulness.” Psalm 115:1 (CEV)

And I’ve found that most of the time when God interrupts me it’s because the conversation wasn’t centered around Him to begin with.

So actually, these interruptions are more like instructions. It’s as if God is saying,

“This isn’t where I want you to go.”

“This isn’t what you need.”

“This isn’t right for you.”

And as we stay in conversation with him, we can trust that eventually, he will interrupt us to tell us what is.

It might not make sense in the moment, but when God says, “Sorry for the interruption!” it is actually a loud proclamation of love. For the maker of the mountains to lean in, listen to our little lives, and turn us around simply because he wants our full attention, what a wild love! A love so bold and passionate and fearless. A love that will stop you mid-sentence because something as scattered your attention is that precious to Him. A love that doesn’t need you, but wants you enough to show it.

That I can trust.

But I might have to get better about the cat.

Molly

“Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.” James 1:17-18