A Time to Work

There is no stopping the Lord when there is a job to be done.

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you. He said to them, Go and tell that fox for me, Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. - Luke 13:31-32

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed.  There are so many things to get done in so little time, that I start to panic.

But introduce a threat that I will be stopped from doing what I need to do, and everything changes.

Suddenly I am recharged, energized and committed to completing what I need to do, quickly.

That's what today's reading reminds me of.

Jesus is put under pressure and he makes a decision.  I will get my work done in three days and then go.

Maybe we all need that kind of push, something to threaten us enough to get focused and do what we came to do.

Left to our own devices, we might procrastinate or fail to get started at all.

The threat may not be as dire as what Jesus encountered.  We may just find ourselves double booked.

Or we could get a real wakeup call, like being told we have cancer.

I know someone who is not responding well to that call right now.

I know it is not for me to judge how someone else responds to such a threat, but it makes me think about what I would do.

I think that is the point of the Gospel reading.

What would we do?

Would we double down and be even more committed, or will we flee?

In the end, it is a sign of our character, and no matter what anyone else says, it is up to us.

More to come...