What Distractions are Blinding You to God?

Distractions, Distractions, Distractions!

Distractions are keeping me from the important stuff on a very busy day…

I am at a distant airport.  Planes are late.  Flights are cancelled.

I’ve forgotten my computer charger.  The battery’s dead.  I’m falling behind on work.

I planned to fly home today before traveling to the next meeting.  A day to pick up a fresh suit and spend at least a few hours with my family.

Planes, computers, schedules, battery chargers.   How could all these distractions conspire against me?

Can I have the suit shipped to the next hotel?  It’s my power suit.  I remember the executive I’ll be meeting next…

At the last meeting, he said, “I listen to you because you dress like you know what you’re talking about”.

He laughed when he said it.  But he meant it.

Not getting home to pick up my power suit would be a disaster.

Hurrying down the concourse to a connecting flight, I almost literally ran into the executive vice president of a big client.  He was standing still, staring at a TV screen.

“Hi Tom”, I said. “Good to see you.  I wanted to ask ,,,”

Tom’s eyes never left  the TV screen.

I turned to look.  The screen was filled with news of a disaster in the space program.

The Challenger disaster…

Astronauts were dead; a nation shocked.

I’d been so consumed by distractions of my own making, I hadn’t noticed what was happening around me.

Want are your distractions?  Mine are the non-identical twins, Hurry and Worry.

I wonder… if we can’t see the world around us because of the distractions we create, how can we see God’s presence in the world?

How do we remove the distractions that blind us to God?

God has the answer.  He offered it to the Israelites as they fled Egypt, worried that the Egyptians would catch and kill them.

He asked them to do just one thing…

Now then, stand still and see this great thing the LORD is about to do before your eyes!        1 Samuel 12:16

“Stand Still and see…”

A simple command.

A simple act.

An act of surrender.  An act that moves the focus from ourselves to God.

Perhaps that is why for us self absorbed, self important, self distracted human beings, it is one of the most difficult acts of all.