How to Overcome Distractions
The year 2020 has been filled with many unexpected events that cause disquiet in our hearts. As we look ahead to 2021, there are many things on the horizon and unknown that evoke anxiety. All of these things are major distractions to a life of devotion to the Lord and His Kingdom priorities.
Someone once said, “Among the enemies of devotion none is so harmful as distractions.”
What is distraction in our spiritual life? Here’s what I read recently, “Whatever excites the curiosity, scatters the thoughts, disquiets the heart, absorbs the interests or shifts our life focus from the Kingdom of God within us to the world around us - that is a distraction; and the world is full of them. Our science-based civilization has given us many benefits but it has multiplied our distractions and so taken away far more than it has given. . . ”. Very true indeed!
What are the remedies to overcome distraction? Distractions must be conquered or they will conquer us, and we’ll live in spiritual poverty. Here are three suggestions to overcome distractions.
One, we must intentionally set aside time, just as in earlier and simpler times, to pray and pray fervently, meditate on the word of God, grow the inner life of communion with God, and learn to hear the voice of God speaking to us. Hab. 2:20 says, “. . . the Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
Two, let us cultivate simplicity; let us want fewer things; let us walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit; and let us do, as Eph. 5: 19-21 says,
“speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”
Three, and finally, let us rest assured in the love of God. Jeremiah 31:3 says, “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love, with unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.” In this Advent season, let us immerse ourselves in the unfailing and everlasting love of our God that we “might be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Brother Sajan