My favourite story from this week happened yesterday. A Norwegian man woke up after a gentle thud outside to find a 135-metre cargo ship wedged in his garden.
Apparently, strong winds and loose moorings helped this sea giant drift across a fjord and gently (miraculously?) beach itself on his property. No one was hurt. No major damage. Just a man in his slippers blinking at a barnacled vessel where his rhubarb used to be.
It’s the kind of surreal story that feels like it should be a metaphor. So, let’s make it one.
Because doesn’t life sometimes feel exactly like that? You’re going about your business—feeding the cat, putting on the kettle—and then bam, a cargo ship of – what? Disappointment, diagnosis, or drama parks itself right on your lawn. Uninvited. Immovable. A sculptural reminder of how little control we really have over our lives.
And yet—here’s the curious gift—these interruptions can also become holy ground.
Throughout Scripture, the people of God are constantly interrupted: Abraham gets told to pack up and go; Mary gets a surprise angel; Saul gets knocked off his horse. It’s in the uninvited, unexpected arrivals that God most often does something new.
Jesus, too, is an interrupter. He sidles up to fishermen, tax collectors, and the terminally ill, not with a scheduled appointment, but with a disruptive grace that says: “Follow me.” “Get up.” “Be free.”
I don’t know about you, but I am conscious, whenever I share the gospel with someone in conversation that this is not a small thing I’m sharing with them. It’s going to require a life reorientation. If they trust in Jesus, they’ll be inviting someone good, yes – but un-tame into their lives.
So maybe the question isn’t how do I get rid of this ship? but what might God be doing with it?
When Jesus turns up—whether in someone’s life for the first time, or in ours again and again—he doesn’t just ask for a corner of the garden. He asks to take up space. To change the landscape. And while that might be disconcerting, even inconvenient, it’s also the beginning of redemption.
Because in the gospel, every interruption—every unexpected arrival—can become a doorway to grace.
grace and peace,
Steve