I hate interruptions. I especially hate interruptions that interrupt me when I’m pressed for time and on a hot trail to accomplish the task I have in hand; like when I am interrupted by silly tourists and their insatiable appetite toward finding the Statue of Liberty when you’re huffing and puffing to get to an event you’re probably, most indefinitely going to be late to now because of these lost tourists! Interruptions at times like these are as frustrating as commercial breaks during the last thirty seconds of a win or go home playoff football game. What can we do besides groan, sigh and deal with the unwanted nuisance of an interruption and keep it moving? We treat all interruptions to our life this way, don’t we? I guess sometimes we blow up at the interrupter in a curt tone while passive-aggressively lauding them for their impeccable timing. One thing is for sure, we don’t welcome the interruption, interrupter and the sublime details of the situation. But, what if I told you that sometimes God interrupts us for something better? How would we treat those interruptions? Better question, how could we identify God’s interruptions to our lives from the everyday ones that add nothing of value? Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, “Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. And this shall be the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince over his heritage. – 1 Samuel 10:1 Saul, at this point in his life, was nothing more than an oversized pretty boy running errands for his dad. Despite the pettiness of his duties, he took very seriously the job he was given. He had to scour the territory and find three missing sheep. He searched long for the missing sheep to no avail. In the middle of his frantic search for the lost sheep, he was interrupted by a prophet! He was inconvenienced and told not to return home yet. Moreover, he was told to stop worrying about the missing sheep. How in the world can somebody, who interrupts what you were doing then tell you to stop worrying about what you deemed important enough to do? That is the position Saul is in when God, through the prophet Samuel, interrupts his life for the better. All of us need to pay attention to interruptions from God which intervene on our behalf and future destiny. Some interruptions are definitely distractions; but God’s interruptions come when we settled on mediocre and pursue it like the ultimate. Ask yourself, have you been pursuing something you are merely settling for? Then ask of the interruption, doesn’t this seem to be bigger than my capabilities? Haven’t God’s people been telling me that there is more that I could and should be doing? If the answer is “yes” to all of these questions, then the interruption presenting itself COULD be from God. There is one more criterion to know for sure: is there a clear and definite sign from God that this is His interruption? A clear sign, if you think that’s just a worthless abstraction, is ALWAYS finding the duties and pursuits you have been chasing coming to fruition without you. You know an interruption is from God when your current obligations and duties are not shirked by your interrupted circumstance. In fact, you know that an interruption is a distraction when whatever you were doing is still left undone. God wants to interrupt us for something better. He is the God of interruptions. He interrupted the course of human history and gave us salvation from the worthless life we were pursuing through Jesus. We weren’t going to find what we were looking for without being interrupted by Christ. Today we must embrace God’s interruption because He has set us aside for something else, something better. I pray that we are all interrupted by God frequently and powerfully. Perhaps this quiet time is the interruption you need for something better.