Tuesday, January 5, 2021 Some material taken from If Only vs Regardless and One Thing I Do
To humans
belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the proper answer of the
tongue. All a person's ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the
LORD. Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.
Proverbs 16:1-3 NIV
The Danger of Distractions
Today we have so many things that can distract us. In fact,
people make money off distracting us. How many countless hours have you spent
scrolling through social media? Or bingeing on Netflix – ouch! I hate to say it, but it is true. We
literally have whatever we want to distract ourselves in the palm of our hands.
You can do just about anything on a cell phone, including binge watch a show.
Don’t get me wrong, a little distraction can be a good thing
at times, until it begins to take over your mind. Suddenly it is all you think
about and what you can’t wait to do as soon as you have any “free” time (that
is not really free time). It is so easy to slip into this place, and this past
year we have sought to be distracted from what was going on in the world. Now,
some of us are having a harder time than others getting back to not being
distracted. We have grown very comfortable in our cozy quarantine clothes,
working from home and watching church online on Sunday mornings.
Sometimes people find distractions because they don’t want
to think about what is really going on in their lives. Sometimes people find
distractions because they just don’t want to do what they should be doing –
like the dishes, or cleaning house, or having a quiet time. It comes down to
putting the most important things at the top of the list, and then if you have
time for a distraction you can indulge a little without completely taking your
focus off what is most important.
Faithfulness to Christ is based in maintaining the proper
priorities in life with a willingness to submit all other things to His purpose
and agenda. Losing your focus leads to losing your purpose which leads to
losing your joy. Establishing priorities will help when distraction threatens
to steal our time. We can quickly re-focus when we have a list of priorities we
are trying to stick to. The biggest danger of distraction is to our spiritual
life. We can become spiritually complacent if we are not careful. Once we
become happily distracted it is hard to trade it for spiritual discipline.
What distraction are you enjoying that you know you should
be eliminating? Or at least reducing some? We all have them, but we have to
learn to manage them and put the first things first. Jesus is first over everything.
When we put Him in that first place, everything else will fall into place. Stephen
Covey stated in the Seven habits of Highly Effective People, “First Things
First Make a Winner Every Time.” When we put Jesus as the first thing, it is
not to say we won’t have troubles, because we will. Jesus told us that. But we
will certainly have less troubles, and a more fulfilled life when He is
elevated to the most important place.
