Disruptions: When God Interrupts to Show Us Who He Really Is
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” — James 1:2-4 (NASB)
James 1:2-4 is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture. And I want to camp on one word in it — trials — and hand you a different word for the same thing: disruptions.
Because that's what a trial really is: a disruption. Life settles into a groove — familiar routines, familiar assumptions, a familiar sense of how things are supposed to go. A disruption breaks that groove. And here's what I've come to believe: God never wastes a disruption. They can come as grief or as a hard circumstance — a job lost, a diagnosis, a betrayal — or even as a friend who loves you enough to say something you didn't want to hear. The form doesn't matter. What matters is that a disruption interrupts business as usual long enough for you to meet God in a new and deeper way — if you'll let it.
I learned this the hardest way I can imagine. In 2001, my sister died, and it turned my whole world upside down. That was the first disruption — the kind that levels you. But there was a second one beneath it, and I never saw it coming.
As I worked through my grief with a trusted friend, he put his finger on something I'd believed for years but never said out loud: that good Christians are protected from life's real tragedies. Somewhere along the way, I'd assumed that if I stayed faithful enough, God would shield me from genuine loss and suffering. My sister's death shattered that assumption — and my friend helped me see it had never been true to begin with.
But God did a work in my heart as a result. See, here’s the truth He taught me in that season: God never promised His people immunity from a fallen world. He promised something deeper — to be with us in it and to use even our worst losses to grow us and reveal Himself. That's exactly what James is getting at. Trials aren't a sign that God has abandoned you; they're often the very tool He uses to make your faith “perfect and complete.” Both disruptions — the grief and the lie it exposed — worked together, and God used them to teach me who He really is and how to walk with Him in a broken world.
So when the disruption comes — and it will — you have a choice in how you meet it. You can brace yourself against it, resent it, and wait for your old routine to return. Or you can lean in and ask, “Lord, what do You want to show me here?” The disruption itself isn't your enemy. Held with open hands, it may be the very thing that breaks you open to God.
Big Idea
Disruptions can become some of your most profound encounters with God — the interruptions you'd never choose are often the very ones He uses to reveal Himself. Don't just survive them; seek Him in them.
Questions to Ponder
When a disruption hits, what's your instinct — do you deny it, avoid it, or scramble to get back to normal? What does that look like for you, and where does it leave you, during and after? Does it spill over onto the people around you? Or do you slow down and ask what God might be doing in it? And here's the deeper one: can you relate to the belief I carried — that God shields good Christians from real suffering? Is there something you believe about God that a hard season might expose as false?
Application
With your journal in hand, think of a disruption you're facing right now — or one you've never fully worked through. If one doesn't come to mind, ask the Lord. You might have to sit with it a moment — we're good at burying these — but for most of us, a disruption is never far from the surface. First, name it honestly; don't minimize it. Then bring the Lord two questions: “What are You wanting to show me about Yourself here?” and “Is there something I've believed about You that this is exposing as false?” Don't rush the answers; let Him speak over time. How you respond to a disruption truly shapes your faith — deny and avoid it, and you'll stay stuck; embrace it and let God work, and you'll grow. But the growth was never yours to manufacture. Your part is simply to keep your hands open and let Him do what only He can do in the interruption.
Before the Lord — a daily devotional by Blake S. Crawford. Read more and subscribe free at blakescrawford.com/before-the-lord.