The phone rings. Your child has the flu and has thrown up all over the sofa, and someone just rang your doorbell. You have a stack of books begging to be read, you still haven’t caught up with your emails, and your son needs to be dropped off at soccer practice. It’s really hard to remain focused these days, isn’t it?! Our lives are filled with the urgent, and we seem to have little to no time for the eternal and issues that really matter. It’s like a hippo in a garden – hard to see what truly matters with a large herbivorous creature taking front and center!
Some distractions are an easy fix, but what happens when distractions are deliberately sent our way to take focus off life-altering concerns? Many today have purposely brought distraction after discretion our way – dividing and tearing our families and communities apart – all the while spinning our focus off truly weighty issues.
It’s amazing how one bad slap at the Oscars can grab the full attention of mainstream media, all the while ignoring the root causes of inflation & gas hikes, cancel culture, the border crisis, the woke agenda, etc. The list goes on and on. We have been fed an endless diet of fear!
I recently read a truly grisly description of the long-ago (thank God) practice of killing people by strapping each leg and arm to a horse and then sending the horses in separate directions. Of course, this tore the person into pieces. It was gruesome! The practice was called “distraction.” The root meaning of “distraction” conveys a clear sense of being pulled out and away.
Distraction today is defined as “a pulling apart, separating, or to draw in different directions.” The picture is pretty clear as to what distractions can do to our minds and eventually our actions! We are ultimately pulled in many different directions, more often than not, neglecting real issues. The hippo lives!
But where should our brain-boxes be during these times? At home? Buried in a computer? Seduced by the TV set? There’s a story of two boys who went fishing one day, with their mom telling them, “If you catch enough, we’ll have a fish fry for dinner.” They came home empty-handed. Why? There were a lot of snakes in that pond, and they keep poking their heads up out of the water, so the boys threw rocks at them all day and never got their poles out to fish.
That’s a picture of many today throwing rocks at sneaky snakes while our nation twists in the wind. Colossians 3:2 tells us to “Set your mind (focus) on things above, not on things on the earth.” But as freedoms are slowly being eroded, what is distraction and what are things we should pay attention to? After all, paying attention to the wrong things distracts us from living life on purpose and having an impact.
Jude 3 has an interesting phrase embedded in it. We are told to “contend earnestly for the faith.” People fight and give their lives for that which they love – Jesus loved the church and gave His life for it. We need to take a cue here – you can never fight a battle from a rocking chair or in a lazy Boy! Remember – no one ever said this would be easy – they said it would be worth it.
There’s a captivating story about an incident that happened during the victorious march of Alexander the Great as he conquered the known world for the Grecian Empire. A young soldier became extremely fearful in the heat of battle, dropped his sword & shield, and fled. An officer sent several soldiers to seize the fleeing warrior and bring him back to face execution.
The frightened soldier was brought before Alexander. “What is your name soldier?” He replied, “Alexander, sir.” Alexander the Great replied, “Young man, change your ways or change your name.” Ultimately, Alexander sent him back to his division with this command: “Return to your unit and show the courage that our name implies.” As Christ-followers, we are not called to shrink back in the day of battle. Someone once said, “I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me.” How about not allowing your life’s light to be distracted by the darkness around you either?! We need to be about actions – not distractions! So, be on guard and beware of the hippo!
Bob and Susan Beckett pastor The Dwelling Place City Place at 27100 Girard Street in Hemet, CA. For more information, you can contact them at DPCitychurch.org
Susan Beckett | The Dwelling Place City Place
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