A Closer Look at Jesus’ Daytimer

This is from Mark Buchanan’s book, The Rest of God

…The distinguishing mark of the purposeful is not time-management.

It’s that they notice.  They’re fully awake.  Jesus for example.  He lived life with the clearest and highest purpose.  Yet he veered and strayed from one interruption to the next with no apparent plan in hand other than his single overarching one: Get to Jerusalem and die.  Otherwise, his days as far as we can figure were a series of zigzags and detours, apparent whims and second thoughts, interruptions and delays, off the cuff plans, spur of the moment decisions, leisurely meals, serendipitous rounds of story telling…

• who touched me?
• you give them something to eat
• let’s go to the other side

Jesus was available — or not — according to some oblique logic all his own. He had an inner ear for the Father’s whispers, a third eye for the Spirit’s motions. One minute he’s not going to the temple, the next he is. One minute he refuses to help a wedding host solve his wine drought, the next he’s all over it. He’s ready to drop everything and rush over to a complete stranger’s house to heal his servant but dawdles four days while Lazarus — “the one he loves” — writhes in his death throes or fails to come at all when John — “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven” — languishes on death row. The closest we get to what dictated Jesus’ schedule is his own statement in John’s gospel: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3: 8 NIV)

~Mark Buchanan