“I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways. I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.” Psalm 119:14-16
Do you struggle with being easily distracted? I think if we’re honest, most of us can say that we do to various degrees and in various ways. As you think about your day-to-day life, you can likely easily point to the distractions you face, as well as the distractions you struggle with. The two aren’t necessarily the same. You may be able to face many and not struggle with them. Yet, there’s an onslaught of them, isn’t there? The world, our flesh, our society, matters affecting our culture, politics, TV, movies, games, along with good things in family, church and life, etc. want to your time, affections, as well as your head and heart space.
Further, with the rapid, personalized advances of technology and media platforms, like websites, social media, podcasts, etc. that onslaught comes right to you on your smart phones, TVs, and computers. The distraction delicacies that various organizations put together are right in front of your face, to be brought in through your eyes and ears to your heart. From a physiological point of view, the high tech movies, videos, games and memes provide such heightened stimulation of our brains that it can easily lead to inattention issues, especially in our children as they are exposed to and spend time absorbing them. Our brains are going a mile a minute, so to speak, trying to process the quickly changing stimuli. They become trained to crave such, along with instant information, making it hard and harder to slow our thoughts, and focus our attention, even when we really want or need to and the stimulation isn’t in front of us.
Now, I speak to these things for a reason. That reason isn’t to condemn the use of technology or media platforms. They can be used properly. It isn’t to set up a call to disengage from society, culture, or politics either. We need to engage in such more and more with the light of Christ. However, it is to raise the point that we need to be attentive, watchful, and wise to how such things influence and affect us physically, mentally, emotionally, and importantly- spiritually. For as distractions can easily negatively affect our day-to-day lives and relationships. They can also negatively affect us spiritually, interrupting the meditation and contemplation that the psalmist speaks of in Psalm 119, among other things. They can affect our gaze being fixed on Christ, His Word, and His ways. They can affect our worship. They can affect our walk in the light.
In many ways, Satan is a master of distraction. In fact, he wants you to be distracted and ineffective for Christ’s kingdom. He’s a master of distraction and deception. The two can go hand-in-hand. He is skilled in bringing temptations your way. He’s skilled at bringing specific temptations to you that touch your weaknesses. Satan knows how to draw you to be distracted by the world, and the things of it. He knows how to make the corruptions of your flesh so alluring as well. If you think about it, what purpose does temptation serve? It largely serves as a lure to catch our eye, to catch our attention even for a moment, and turn our heart, allegiance, and obedience away from Christ and His law, as you wander from His way. It tries to turn you away from your godly meditation on His precepts, and think, “Hey! What’s that over there? That looks really good. I want it!” That moment, if undealt with, leads to minutes, hours, days, even years of focus change and dark path walking. Be mindful that though distractions can often be annoying or undesired, it’s also true that we can welcome distractions because they keep us disconnected with some of the pain we face in reality. Anxiety and depression can often lead us to such desire. Indeed, temptation serves as a distraction that leads you to the trap, to the snare as you plunge into the pits of sin. How quickly our hearts and feet are willing to veer off course!
So, what can we do to deal with distraction? Here are 4 things to consider:
- Daily, prayerful self-examination is key. I can’t emphasize this enough. As Satan is crafty and lures are sugar coated, we need to engage in regular, humble self-examining prayer to our Lord, asking the Spirit to reveal our blind spots and any sin that we’ve engaged in so that we can mortify and deal with it. (Psalm 139:23-24) As we can become distracted and come to enjoy the distraction, we need to pray that we would better know our weaknesses so that our guard and walk can be godly, better informed, and effective. (Galatians 5:16-17) We need to pray that He would give us His strength in the face of temptation to take the escape hatch that He provides, so that we can bear it. (1 Corinthians 10:13) We need to be sincere in our petitions that God would remove distractions from our minds so we can carry out our daily duties in ways that please Him, as well as worship Him as we ought.
- Be disciplined in your thoughts and walk. This is one of the biggest challenges we face as Christians. Like many other struggles, our willingness to allow and feed distractions can come from a lack of self-discipline, a lack of self control and diligence to have focused attention on and obedience to our Lord. It can come from laziness and a lack of discipline to not let anything get in the way of our wholehearted meditation on Christ and His commands, as well as contemplation of His holy ways. Therefore, godly discipline is what needs to bud and flourish in your life, so that you can press through valleys of tempting distractions that stress, worry, and despair bring, as you seek to delight in God’s statues and not forget His Word. (2 Timothy 1:7) Discipline your mind to focus and refocus. Do you see how those are connected? Meditating involves reading and pondering the Word. As you discipline your practice of doing so more and more (even when you don’t feel like it), the Holy Spirit implants and writes His Word in your heart so that it’s more and more in your memory.
- Guard and train your heart and mind, as well as those of your children. The world fails at this as it promotes the practice of distraction, especially through entertainment and indoctrination. Whatever appeases you, whatever keeps the kids calm and out of their parents’ hair is beneficial and desired. Yet, what damage that does. What a waste of time. What poor guidance and reinforcement can ensue. What inattention it creates. What lessons it misses. What lack of growth in discipline it fosters. With this in mind, it’s good and right for you, as godly parents, to guard your children by saying, No. It’s good and right for you to restrict or limit devices and content they have access to. It’s good and right for you to shepherd them in the ways of Christ, teaching them to discern what is good and evil, as well as how to discipline themselves with what they fill their minds with, that their meditation would be on the Lord and what’s pure and godly. (Philippians 4:8)
- Don’t despise support and accountability. It’s often true that as God works through means, He provides you with friends, family, brothers and sisters in the Lord, as well as your pastor and officers in the church to help you see both the presence and patterns of distractions that you wrestle with. It’s easy to get lost in the weeds, instead of keeping the main things the main things. This support is therefore good and healthy in your sanctification. Guard your heart against frustration when one comes to you saying things like, “Brother, you may be getting consumed with _____, but this is what Scripture says you should be thinking about and doing”, or “Sister, it looks like your focus is veering off on a wrong path. Let me encourage you to return to the way of the Lord in this way.” Prayerfully consider their counsel, be thankful for their willingness to seek to sharpen you, and take the steps needed to correct your course.
I’ll leave you with 3 passages to meditate on and prayerfully apply:
“Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls.” – Proverbs 25:28
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” – 1 John 2:15-17
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7