Are you distracted? I know I am. I have been distracted for as long as I can remember. Think I’m exaggerating ?Ask my mom….NO JOKE. Homework in the afternoon after school I’d rather be doing a million other things besides that! Or how about my teachers, or you could just look at the comments on my report cards. I probably could have been diagnosed with ADD, matter of fact I bet I could pass the test for adult ADD, or As I like to refer to it as ADOS – Attention Deficit, OHHHH Shiny- Thanks Mark Hall from Casting Crowns (see his testimony for more explanation)
Oh wait what were we talking about? Oh right, DISTRACTIONS!
I even get distracted from sleep..no seriously, IT JUST HAPPENED. I have planned into my time here at camp for naps. One a day. Every day. I set my alarm because then I won’t sleep too long, and I really want to sleep at night. Anyway in order to actually hear my alarm I have to have the sound turned up. I keep my sound turned down for both services and while I write and read…BECAUSE IT DISTRACTS ME! It keeps me from getting the things done I need or want to accomplish. I don’t need to jump at every ding, or dong….BUT today I was so close to being sound asleep then I heard the ding. SCARED ME TO DEATH! I tried my best to ignore it, but I. Just. Couldn’t. Do. It. So I grabbed my phone.
Voicemail.
Listened to it.
“Try again”
Yep that is all it said. “TRY AGAIN” I didn’t recognize the number, it was out of state. GRRRR. And when I jolt out of sleep there is just no going back so here I am.
Writing.
Something I LOVE to do.
But in all honesty this isn’t exactly the type of distraction I want to talk to you about. It actually happened in my reading Yesterday I was reading The Battle Plan for Prayer by Stephen and Alex Kendrick. and They made a statement that left me with my mouth gaping open. “no Church program, religious event, political effort or humanitarian cause can trump the awesome power of what God can do in the response to the prayers of his people.” Now this struck a much deeper chord with me and Im going to take this a little deeper than they did. So let’s ask this question…..what is the opposite of distraction?
The answer is FOCUS….where do we get focus from? OUR PASSION….our PURPOSE? AND what is the purpose of a Christ emulator? Well I will tell you it’s threefold:
- To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Deut. 6:5, Matt. 22.37 Mark 12.30 Luke 10.27)
- To love your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22.39, Gal 5.14)
- To go out and make disciples. (matt 28.19) Otherwise known as the Great Commission.
Are you following?
Ok so now I want you to go to your Facebook, twitter, your blog, instagram or whatever form of social media you prefer and see just how many times you have gotten on your proverbial soapbox to raise awareness for…..the purple-lipped peanut rat that is becoming extinct. How about the health hazards of drinking water. And there is the ever growing danger of star gazing and bird watching. And the mistreatment of slugs. NOW I know that I made every single one of those up. The purple-lipped peanut rat…DOES NOT EXSIST!!! Now scrolling though your feeds again, look at the number of times you proclaim Jesus. If A perfect stranger were to look at your newsfeed would they think you were a really good person for sticking up for the slug or would they know you are a believer in Jesus Christ?
Now this is hitting home for me because I have written about Autism and special needs, matter of fact hubby and I have led 3 different seminars on the subject and how it impacts our churches, I have written about here as well, and there is the Crisis pregnancy center I volunteer at and I believe EVERY SINGLE LIFE is worth fighting for. And there are the ministries of our church that I am involved in I could take them to the extreme and talk about them non-stop like they are some exclusive club, or just something else good to do, but lets be honest if someone looks at our newsfeeds, threads, our blog posts….OR listens to our speech…and the only thing we can talk about is the dangers of drinking water or star gazing..YOU AND I ARE DISTRACTED. We are putting other things before our personal relationship with GOD…OUR PURPOSE…do you know what that is called?
IDOLATERS….
idol worshippers.
I have watched both big-name and small name Christ emulators take on causes…fighting for….you fill in the blank. BUT the person we should be emulating is Jesus…..and you know what his cause was…..THE GOSPEL of GRACE. I sat through a sermon series 3 weeks ago on grace. it has changed my life. I must confess I have been distracted with productivity. I have been guilty of thinking, “I’m not going to invest time into that person because….
- they are exhausting
- they aren’t really interested
- they are unlovely (they have not showered in two weeks or months-I don’t really know anybody like that but I did in 7th grade)
- they take too much time
- they wont understand
- they wont listen
- they don’t really want to change
- they just want attention Feel free at this point to fill in your own excuses as to why you don’t want to deal with certain people…
Let’s ask ourselves some deep questions then….
What if I fit into one of these inconveniences for Jesus? What if he said, you aren’t really interested in changing, so I’m only dying for those who are?
The hardest thing for me to understand is the willingness Jesus had for calling Judas Iscariot into His core group…AND HE KNEW THE END OF THE STORY. He knew he would betray him. He knew he would steal from the money bags AND yet he was still in charge, the treasurer. Jesus knew who he was and still accepted, loved and DIED for Judas. How about Peter, not once, not twice, but three times denied that he even knew Jesus, and yet Peter became one of the most courageous and brave men of the New Testament. God used him in awesome ways….They were Tax Collectors and sinners just like you and me. They were stinky fishermen. They were young men who no priest had chosen to mentor. They were rejects. The lowest of the LOW. Because that is where some of the most radical transformations take place. And yet we have the gall to say you aren’t worth my time? At this point we have elevated ourselves ABOVE Jesus…above God.And Then I feel as though I need to fix them or their problems or whatever else gets in the way of me realizing They are in the exact same place I was. They need the same grace I needed, when everything was falling apart around me. I lost my focus. It became about me and my time. My energy. My freedom. I became an idol worshipper. I was distracted. Distracted away from what it really means to be a child of The King….to sit with my Daddy and talk to him. Pray. I got distracted with all of the noise like I talked about yesterday.
And as I have taken the time this week away from such noises and distractions, my eyes have been opened. Opened to a new way of life. As I study prayer this week and as hubby and I put together something on Bible study I am learning even more about what it looks like to have a personal relationship with Jesus. It’s more that a roll call prayer (what most church prayer meetings and bed time prayers look like-name taken from the book Fervent by Priscilla Shirer) and more than just studying the Bible ( Ihave been wrestling with this since Bible college, where the Bible can sometimes become a textbook and not the greatest redemption account in history.)
It’s what we do with what we learn. To quote my husband, “it’s not about dissecting the Bible looking for hidden meanings and pulling out single words to rip apart.” It’s really about you and God hashing out your life. We get lost in what we think we need to do instead of what God wants us to learn. And the same with our interactions with people, we think “what can we get out f it?” GRACE IS MESSY! From beginning to end, grace is messy, it can be betrayed, hurt, beaten, bruised, whipped,, tortured, lied to, denied, ignored, misused, gossiped about, harassed, bullied…..and in the end, Grace still stands. Grace is painful and inconvenient, Just ask Jesus.
So what are your distractions? Are you distracted from your purpose of the Gospel of Grace? How about the act of making Disciples after the gospel of grace has been accepted? How do you think you need to re-work how you communicate to the people within your sphere of influence that you are a Christ follower, not just a good person with a noble cause?
. Blessings,
Mary
