Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)
Distractions…there are many in this world. It seems the moment we wake up every day until the moment we go back to sleep there are distractions that keep us from God. Even this very blog can be a huge distraction to me. Recently I’ve taken a step back from blogging because I noticed it was taking time away from my daily Bible routine. I was beginning to spend a lot of time trying to think of what to write about next, instead of patiently waiting and listening to what the Lord has to tell me, and that’s exactly what He was telling me…“Stop blogging and dive back into scripture.” It’s extremely easy to get distracted. It’s just about the easiest thing a Christian can do.
The unbelieving world lives and resides in distractions. They call it “living normal life”. Distractions come in many forms. They can be personal projects, friends, family, children, entertainment, goals, addictions, hobbies, etc. The list can go on and on. In the end, we spend countless moments moving this or that around, thinking this or that, and when we make “this or that” the goal in our lives, or the purpose, we can place ourselves in a world of apprehension and stress. Stress about the future, because we’ve become bogged down with moving this or that, thinking this or that and have taken our eyes off of God.
Not only does Peter in the passage above tell us not to be drunk off of alcohol or any substances, but this also means not to be drunk off of distractions. “A sober mind” is a mind that is set on things above rather than set on things of the world. Salvation is free, but discipleship is expensive. We mustn’t let our lives’ priority become the “filler” that the world offers to take our minds off of God. The Word is very clear that you and I will never do anything that will be enough to earn God’s favor. We all fall short of the glory of God, but it’s this common knowledge that keeps us moving forward and keeps us in the fight because of the conviction of The Holy Spirit. We have this unquenchable desire to move closer to Him to have a deeper and more intimate relationship. It’s a yearning that grows and becomes stronger over time. What did Caleb do after many years had passed following the Israelites inheriting the promised land west of the Jordan? In Joshua 14 we learn that when the lots of land were being dispersed and divided Caleb chose to go and live amongst the Anakites, descendents of the Nephilim, an evil hybrid offspring of “the sons of God” (fallen angels) and human women.
Now then, just as the Lord promised, He has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time He said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as He said. (Joshua 14:10-12)
This man was 85 years old, and instead of moving away from the danger he turned and walked right back into the fire. The lesson here is to STAY IN THE FIGHT!
I’ll end with a less than obvious distraction that can also creep into our faith. What do I mean by this? Have you ever sat in church during a sermon that hits hard, heard a powerful worship song, or listened to someone’s extraordinary testimony, and you were overcome with a wave of emotion? Before you know it your face is covered in tears, hands up in praise, you shout… “AMEN!” In that moment you feel one with God. This is the distraction. We can become so “addicted” to the powerful moments that the normal, less than powerful moments, become close to nothing to us, and it’s in these small moments when He is speaking to you. We can get to a point where we are “just not feeling anything like I used to.”
There’s an account that always plays in the back of my mind routinely in 1 Kings. The prophet Elijah, just coming off of the miracle of God killing all the prophets of Baal, is sent a death threat by Jezebel via a messenger. He’s so overcome with fear he flees to the wilderness. He does this even after the miracles he just participated in. He wanders around the wilderness for many weeks in a state of total stress, anxiety, and fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the future. Eventually Elijah ends up in a dark cave, and suddenly a series of “seemingly” powerful moments take place while Elijah is deep in the wilderness utterly enveloped in his anxiety and stress…
“Go out,” He responded, “and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord.” And there was the Lord, passing by! A tremendous, mighty windstorm was tearing at the mountains and breaking the rocks in pieces in the presence of the Lord, but the Lord was not in the windstorm. After the wind there came an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there came fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, there was the sound of a gentle whisper. As soon as Elijah heard it, he covered his face in his mantle, went outside, and stood at the entrance to the cave. And there a voice spoke to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11-13)