“Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that’s where life starts. Don’t talk out of both sides of your mouth; avoid careless banter, white lies, and gossip. Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions. Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you. Look neither right nor left; leave evil in the dust.” – Proverbs 4: 23-27 (The Message)
I had a dream recently where I woke up only to discover the floor in the master bath covered with broken glass. I don’t know who dropped the light bulb, but it was a major hurdle to my early morning routine with sharp pointy shards all over causing me to put on my flip flops and out of kindness to my wife quickly grab a broom and dustpan to clean it up. Neither of us needed a distraction like that. But we get them… good ones and not so good ones… and we notice them because the details are written right in the word itself… dis-traction… getting us a bit off the course we think we are on or should be on… again… for the good or not so good of daily life… some we bring upon ourselves even though most of them appear without our permission or request!
The Bible is full of distractions. And for someone who has been reading his Bible for decades it takes a bit of time to figure out that a lot of the biblical distractions are connected or resolved not just in moments or days… but sometimes it takes years and even centuries to fully understand what happened… and why…
Biblical distractions? Like what…? Like people watching Noah build an ark and then came the flood. That was a huge distraction… for everyone! Or that time when they ran out of wine at a wedding in Cana and Jesus was asked to do something about it… So… he did… with the entire wedding party getting distracted by consuming the very best wine they’d ever tasted.
Does that make God the Great Distractor? Sometimes. God has always been calling us to faithfulness and uses whatever means available to make a point… like Jacob wrestling with God… or Moses’ encounter with a burning bush… or Jonah having been swallowed up by a whale in order to be placed back on track to the road to Nineveh…
Other times those distractions are the result of sinful acts of humans… like when Daniel was tossed into a den of lions… or when a tower fell on some passersby in Jerusalem and were crushed. Had that happened today… someone would be calling the Texas Hammer to file a lawsuit for damages… which is a whole other set of distractions… as many of our life experiences are simply an attempt to bring justice to something off kilter or to right a wrong or repair something that is broken… as moments like feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and providing drink to the thirsty are necessary distractions in God’s world… all acts and signs pointing to Jesus’ way of greatness! And this…
In the Old Testament the story is told of Joseph… perceived as his father’s favorite… making his brothers jealous of the attention. Their response? They threw him in a deep hole to die… took his coat back to their father, now covered in lamb’s blood saying he was dead being killed by a lion… and years later as a result of a famine… another huge life distraction… those same brothers went to Egypt seeking food from Pharoah… and in God’s economy… the Pharoah’s chief steward was their brother Joseph who had been rescued and found favor in Egypt… and recognizing his brothers… he said to them… “what you intended for evil… God intended for good”… and a family reunion unfolded… God is faithful… and of course… there’s still the world’s distraction with a cross and empty tomb… God’s way for us all…
So… how are the distractions in your life going? We all get some! Faith matters… it does…
