Unscheduled

The school announcement last week read, “Due to difficult weather conditions, Astoria Schools will have an old fashioned snow day…” I have to admit, I appreciate the idea of ‘old fashioned’ when it comes to things like that. And so for three days this week, we tried to do that.
And I’ll admit that it was nice to have extra, unscheduled, time to be home together. Granted I was still working, so it wasn’t all pleasant due to their interruptions and moments of purse chaos. But it also allowed for us to have some time to just sit around the table while I worked, a couple kids played board games and another worked on a puzzle. It was during this unscheduled time that we were able to talk about stuff, not prompted by me, that helped me hear a little more about their lives and what they were thinking. We even got into some thoughts on the Bible and understanding it a little better.
But that’s the nature of our lives right now, especially now that we are busier again as the pandemic seems to be lightening. We are right back to scheduling our lives so much so that we don’t have those unscheduled times to just sit around and hang out. And maybe that’s not all bad, but when we don’t have time where things aren’t planned or where we are constantly rushing out the door, it doesn’t allow for thoughts and questions to come to the surface either.
In studying the Lord’s Prayer for my sermon this week, it struck me that unscheduled times seemed to be something that Jesus allowed for in his life. And it was in a time where that was unscheduled that the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray: “Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray…’” (Luke 11.1, ESV). Now, Jesus seems to teach them this prayer during the Sermon on the Mount, too, so they probably would have received this teaching either way, but I think the disciples probably heard Jesus’ teaching better after they asked rather than in the longer sermon. Often that seems to be the case with human nature, right? When we ask an honest question we’re often more willing to hear the answer than if we’re just told it outright.
And it’s those teachable moments that can be so important to our lives. That’s one reason I try to stay connected to people and have routines in my life so that I can be available when those moments might occur. We never know when we might have an answer or a word of encouragement or a response that someone needs to hear. I pray we stay open to God’s leading in those times. God bless.