Kill The Distractions

 “I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us”. Philippians 3:14

I was driving into work the other day and on my journey I was met by a driver who was driving rather dangerously;wreckless to say the least. I could tell by the way he was tailgating me that he thought my driving was too slow. “Well where am I supposed to go as there is so much traffic in front of me?” I thought. It was only God’s grace that I did not end up in an accident. As he finally drived past me, he made a rude hand gesture which I thought was completely uncalled for. What was even stranger and very bizarre, was as soon as he passed me, assumingly having realised that all his previous efforts had all been in vain; he slowed down to 50 miles on a 70 mile stretch.

All I could think about for the rest of that morning was that rude hand gesture. The exchange kept replaying over and over in my head the whole morning. As I continued pondering on this; I kept thinking that I was in fact the victim in this situation! I was the one who had been wronged and if anything, I should have been more irritated by his behaviour! Probably if he could see what I was seeing ahead, he would have acted differently.

Sometimes our walk with God is exactly like the scenario I have just described.God is leading us on a journey but because of our various distractions (some of our own doing) we end up trying to cut corners or take detours along the way. Thi is all in a bid to get where we want or seek revenge or whatever reason we may have. We want things to happen according to our schedule and definitely not according to God’s pace! The worst part of it all is that we eventually end up becoming so fixated on the detour i.e. the distraction that we completely lose sight of the actual journey we are on.

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, “Go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim [judgment] against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” But Jonah ran away to Tarshish to escape from the presence of the Lord [and his duty as His prophet]. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish [the most remote of the Phoenician trading cities]. So he paid the fare and went down into the ship to go with them to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord”. Jonah 1:1‭-‬3 AMP

We read in Jonah 1 that God gave Jonah a word and instructed him to go to Nineveh and proclaim a judgement against it. What does Jonah do instead? HE RAN in complete disobedience to God’s direction! Allowing distractions and self- reasoning to derail you from what God has called to do will lead you into situations and circumstances God never intended you to experience. It took Jonah being thrown out of the boat, being swallowed by a great fish for 3 days and 3 nights, having to repent and went back to do what God had initially told him to get back on track.

What is it you could be doing and what impact would you have for the glory of God if the distractions were not stealing your focus?

My desire for you and a constant reminder for me is that we should all strive to remain focused on the goal until the very end!

God loves you and so do I ❤.