Interrupted...

"Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." -John Lennon

"Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand." -Isaiah 64:8

Today is New Year's Eve. And that means that tomorrow is a brand new year, 2017.

For lots of us, this means a fresh start and lots of new plans, a whole list of resolutions and promises for a coming new year.

When 2018 arrives I'll have met someone I love.

This will be the year I finally get in shape and run my first marathon.

This year I'm going to save money and see the world.

I'm going to be more patient and catch up with old friends.

By this time next year I'll have the job I've always dreamed of.

I'm finally going to get a puppy.

You know the list.

There are lots of things people plan for the new year. Maybe the past 12 months haven't been so great and you just need a blank slate. Or maybe the amazingness of 2016 has left you utterly excited about the prospects of what's next.

It's a time to make resolutions we know may not last until February. But you know what they say about the best laid plans.

So often we create a picture for what our futures hold. We'll have this family and this job and live here and so on and so forth. And that's not a bad thing. Planning is great! It keeps us focused on what's important and where we want to go. But things never turn out exactly the way we plan them, and thank God for that.

There's a story about Jesus and a plan. As Jesus steps out of a boat, a temple leader named Jairus rushes through the crowd to pull Jesus aside. His daughter was dying, he explained, and he needed Jesus to come see about her. Well, of course, Jesus began moving through the crowd at once to follow along to Jairus' house. Until he stopped. In the middle of this impossibly important task.

You see, a woman had grabbed his robe. This wasn't remarkably uncommon, however. People would often touch the tassels of the robes of holy Jewish men with the hope that there was healing power present. But something was different this time. So Jesus stopped.

It turns out the woman had been bleeding uncontrollably for years. Nothing could help her. All she knew to do was reach out for this rabbi's tassels. And something happened. Her bleeding stopped. And so did Jesus.

He turned looking for the guilty party. I can't imagine what Jairus must've been thinking. His daughter was dying after all, and Jesus had stopped because someone (in the wall-to-wall crowd mind you) had touched him. Seconds mattered, and Jesus was wasting them. But he had to stop. Something important had happened.

Terrified, the woman came clean. She explained her situation, her desperation. And Jesus looked at her and said, "Your faith has healed you." The crowd must have been amazed. The woman must have been shocked.

But her gain was Jairus' loss. In the delay, word came that his daughter had died. One woman's life was restored while another's was ended. How could Jesus have been so rude to have backed out on his promise to come and heal her? But all was not lost.

Yes Jesus had stopped. But he knew as well as anyone that sometimes plans have to be laid aside for an inconvenient interruption. You see, interruptions don't usually lead us towards our planned destinations, but that doesn't mean they don't move us forward. Sometimes we have have to take a detour to help us know if the road before us is the right one.

I'd like to tell you about the two interruptions in the past few years that I remember like they were yesterday.

Four years ago, I met Lana. She wandered into the youth building in Fort Worth one Sunday afternoon while I was trying to take a nap before Sunday night youth. She was desperate for a ride across town to see a funeral. I was a little peeved and impatient, but decided I didn't have much of a choice.

On the way there, she explained that the funeral was for world-famous pianist Van Cliburn. Mr. Cliburn had won the world's greatest piano competition in Russia at the height of the Cold War. As a woman from Eastern Europe, this man had been a hero. She had to be there. But she was living in transitional housing and had no car, not to mention a bad back. With a round of gratitude, we got to the church and she walked out. I assumed that would be that, and my afternoon had only suffered 15 minutes of inconvenience.

The next day, I saw Lana on the sidewalk by the church. As I approached, she began to jog my way. (I think her back was the only they restraining her from a full sprint!) She wrapped me in an unannounced hug and told me all that had happened. She'd met a woman at the funeral who loved her story so much she'd invited Lana to the reception at City Hall. She cried at the eulogy but was invited to celebrate the life of a hero she'd never met.

"Thank you, my friend," she said. "You were my angel, and I will never forget this kindness."

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I was running just on time to meet a girl for a dinner date. Parking across the street, I was just a few steps from the door when I heard the familiar introductions of a panhandler. For reasons I can't explain (and definitely couldn't to my date) I stopped to turn around.

"Hey man, listen, if you can help at all..." he began. Before he could finish, I held out my hand to shake his. After a little confusion, he returned the favor. "I'm Martin."

"Man, thank you for looking at me like a human being. I'm Pierce."

That stung. I can't imagine what it must be like to have everyone you meet see you as something less than a person. An obstacle. An eye sore. A burden. A nuisance. But never a brother. Never a part of the family.

We talked for a few minutes, and eventually I handed him more money than I've probably ever handed someone who asked for it. He told me his story, and whether or not any of it was true, somebody listened.

Before we departed so that I could get to my now-very-late date, I asked him one last favor. "Pierce," I asked, "would you mind helping me make a little Christmas cheer? I'm filming videos with people singing Christmas carols to spread a little Christmas joy and I'd love to have you be my partner in crime today."

Thirty seconds later we'd recorded Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and gone our separate ways, but not before one last handshake. Eventually I made it into the restaurant for what proved to be our last date.

Some days it's more important to leave our plans behind for a second if we want to hear the whimsical love God is whispering in our ears.

Back to the story of Jesus and Jairus. While Jairus must've been lost in despair, I imagine Jesus put his arm around the grieving father and whispered in his ear, "Don't worry. It's going to be ok. I just had to stop for a friend." They walked back to the house, and with the same healing the woman had experienced in the crowd, the daughter was healed.

Our plans are important. They are the compass pointing our path. And yet, when they become inflexible and unmovable, when we become so tied to our visions of our future that we can't imagine anything different, they can become the shackles on our feet that restrain us from the detours that God might be inviting us onto.

So may we make plans and dream dreams for what the horizon holds in store for us. May we live in more faithful and loving rhythms and may we orient our resolutions around God's directions for our lives. But may we also allow those plans to be thwarted by whimsy and inconvenience. May we open ourselves up to God's little interruptions, knowing that even if our plans and paths change, the Potter's hands are never done shaping his beloved clay.

forever unfinished...