Over the past week, the same word keeps coming to my mind – DISTRACTION. I decided to look it up in the dictionary and I was completely amazed at what I found.
Distraction is the act of distracting or the condition of being distracted. Well, we knew that!!! But look at what distracted means:
To cause to turn away from the original focus of attention or interest; divert. To pull in conflicting emotional directions; unsettle.
To pull in conflicting emotional directions. Wow! I don’t know about you but I never knew that was a definition of distracted.
As I began to apply this to my life and the work of Truth for Women, I realized something I had never seen before. I know that we have a real enemy who wants to stop the vision, goal, mission that God has placed within our hearts. He does not want the Kingdom of God to advance in our community therefore; the enemy will do whatever it takes to get us to stop the work. But I didn’t realize clearly just how much these little distractions can come in and distract us from the work of the Lord or how they will pull us in a conflicting emotional direction.
As I looked at the lives of the people in the Bible, I began to see how many of them got distracted and when they did, they fell or the work of the Lord was detained.
Look at Samson and Delilah. Delilah was a distraction and she even showed Samson three times that she could not be trusted. Yet, Samson fell asleep on her knees and she cut his hair and began to afflict him. Talk about a pull in an emotional direction.
Remember how Elijah told the prophets of Baal to cut up an ox and place it on wood but they were not to put fire under it? Elijah did the same thing and then he told them to call on the name of their god to ignite the fire under the wood. The prophets of Baal called on the name of their god from morning to noon but nothing happened. So Elijah mocked them and told them to shout even louder. But of course, nothing happened.
Elijah repaired the altar of the Lord and he dug a trench around the altar. Then he arranged the wood and the ox pieces and laid it on the wood. They poured four pitchers of water on the altar and the wood. They did this three times until the water flowed around the altar and he also filled the trench.
Elijah called on the one true living God and fire consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones, the dust and it licked up the water in the trench.
This was a huge victory for God and for Elijah but the story does not end there. After this amazing victory, Jezebel came on the scene and threatens Elijah. She became a distraction to him and he ran off in fear. This sure sounds like a conflicting emotional direction to me! Even after such a huge victory, a man of God like Elijah got distracted and ran away for his life.
How about the disciples who got distracted by which one of them would be the greatest or the Pharisees who were distracted by religiosity that they could not see the Messiah standing right in front of them or King David who was distracted by Bathsheba and the list goes on and on.
What is the goal and the purpose of getting us distracted? I think Nehemiah explains it the best in Chapter 6. Tobiah and Sanballat hired a man to come to Nehemiah to encourage him to go into the temple and close the doors because they were coming to kill him. However, Nehemiah realized that God did not send him but that he uttered his prophecy against Nehemiah because Tobiah and Sanballat hired him. The word “realized” in Hebrew is Nakar meaning perceived, to scrutinize, observe or examine. Nehemiah used wisdom by scrutinizing, observing and examining the situation and he came to the conclusion that God did not send him.
Now here is the key in verse 13 “He was hired for this reason that I might become frightened and act accordingly and sin, so that they might have an evil report in order that they could reproach me.”
I have heard many teachings on this scripture but the one that I hold very close to my heart is that if Nehemiah would have run and hid in the temple, he would have stopped the work that God had called him to do and he would have sinned.
How many times do we get distracted by people, things, fears, lies, the past etc. and it causes us to turn away from the original focus of intention or interest so we are diverted? How many times have others pull us in a conflicting emotional direction?
It is time that we observe, scrutinize, examine and perceive the people and things around us so that we do not get distracted and stop the work that God has called us to do. Recognize what it is and remove it so you are not distracted from what God is asking you to do.
