Be very careful, then, how you live--not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. --Ephesians 5:15-17
I truly believe that distraction is one of Satan's favorite ways to keep Christians from doing the work of God. In our society, distraction is one of the easiest and most accessible tools that Satan has available to him. Most of us live such fast-paced and activity-filled lives, that we can easily fall into Satan's trap of believing that we don't have the time to read the Bible or pray every day. We believe that it's quicker for us to call the shots rather than to pray and wait for God to direct our path. In our fast-food, expressway lifestyle, who has time to wait on God?
Obviously, the better question is who has time to run this race without God? See, the problem is that when we are too distracted to make time for God and we begin to call the shots for ourselves, we usually end up in a mess that only God can untangle and this untangling process often takes more time than if we had just sought God's will in the first place. There is no earthly measure that could help us understand the precious time we waste by doing things our way instead of God's. Even if we can count the hours we spend in front of the TV instead of out ministering to others, even if we can count the days that we allow our gifts to lie dormant when we could be using them for God's glory, even if we know how many minutes we spend on our commutes each day grumbling about traffic when we could be using the time to pray, our minds are too small to comprehend all that is lost from our idleness in the middle of our hectic schedules.
Make no mistake, Satan is laughing and clapping his hands when he sees how easily we are suckered away from our purpose. Even if we don't know, Satan knows full well all that is lost by our wasted time. He makes tick marks on his tally sheet for every opportunity to do good that we miss by falling into his trap of distraction. Our enemy knows how to push us on to the path of fools, and, let me assure you, that he is quite cunning in his methods. Satan knows how to disguise evil by twisting the truth just enough to make it a lie but not so much that it is clearly wrong so that even the well-meaning get led astray. He loves our American ideals which focus on materialism and on self rather than on love and God. He is so pervasive in our culture, that his messages have been imbedded into our unconscious so that we walk around with a sense of entitlement that has nothing to do with who God created us to be or what God created us to do.
We are called by God to live a life of purpose, a life focused on Him, His will, His kingdom, and His word. If we believe Satan that we are too busy for God and God's work, we are living as fools. If we stay focused and seek to keep God in the center of every moment, we are living as the wise. Satan wants us to be so busy that we run on auto-pilot and ignore the opportunties and adventure that God has in store for us each day. God wants us to stay awake and run towards His will rather than zig-zagging through the distractions.
Posted by Kim at March 12, 2007 10:46 AM