God and Schedule

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.  God will be constantly crossing our paths and cancelling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions.

We may pass them by, preoccupied with our more important tasks, as the priest—perhaps reading his Bible—passed by the man who had fallen among thieves…

It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them.  They think they are doing God a service in this.

But it is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage but allow it to be arranged by God.