(1 Cor 7:35) . . . serve the Lord without distraction.
What has the Lord called you to do? Are you keeping your focus or are you letting yourself get distracted? Are you staying on task with that calling on your life, or are you getting sidetracked by all the other things going on around you? Have you let busyness divert you from your Father’s business? It’s time to reestablish your focus and get back on track with that assignment you were on.
Life is filled now with the ability to multitask. We’ve learned to do a lot of things all at once. And though this can be effective for time management sake, it can at times produce a distraction from the main thing you originally set out to do. You had so many things on the line that you were thrown offline! The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing but sometimes we forget what that main thing was in the first place! God intended life to be more on the simple side. I didn’t say easy. I said simple. Complexities and complications veer us off course and it’s always a challenge to find our way back. The question to navigate us back would be, “What has the Lord called me to do in life?” Then when those generalities are established we can work from that foundation and so refocus our lens.
Let’s strip away all the fluff and stuff and get back to basics. You are called to what? You’re called to love God and others, that’s for sure (Lu 10:27). Then what? To be a husband or a wife? A parent? To work at that job? To be a student? And what else? Okay, that wasn’t too hard. Now why all the distractions? You see, we get so caught up in the details of our lives that we forget what we’re doing and why we’re doing what we are doing. We become confused and then get into that irrational mode because we feel lost in a multitude of anxieties. Go back to the basics. Return to what you know is your calling from the Lord in life. Then let all the details of life be in submission to that mission.
Remember Mary and Martha? Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet while Martha was going nuts with the hospitality thing. You remember the story: “But Martha was distracted with much serving, and she approached Him and said, "Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore tell her to help me." 41 And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. 42 "But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her." (Luke 10:40-42)
Life used to present fewer options to choose from. Now we are in option overload! This is because of our technology that is bringing everything in so fast that we become dizzy. Slow down! Wait on the Lord. Choose wisely. (Eph 5:15) See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise. Don’t get ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Instead develop SLWD. That means Serve Lord Without Distraction. It’s simpler than we think!
Louie