I suffer from a mental illness doctor’s call Attention Deficit…….. Dude, what was I talking about?

So I’m no stranger to distractions. Recently, I started to realize that God often uses distractions for good. What I view as just an ADD moment, can sometimes lead me to deeper spiritual insights. As a minister, many times distractions come in the form of a better ministry opportunity.

However, Satan certainly uses them too. That sounds like a no-brainer, but I’m not just talking about distractions that come in the form of an inappropriate pop-up on your computer, or the everyday business that keeps us distant from God.

Unfortunately for us, Satan is really good at distracting us with good things in order to keep us from doing greater things to which God is calling us. That’s what keeps churches on the treadmill; expending so much energy, time, spiritual gifts, and money, but getting nowhere.

For instance, I believe our church is on the brink of being used by God to do some amazing things in His Kingdom and in our community like we’ve never seen before. I’ve been here almost a year now, and I’m getting more and more excited about where we are heading and what God is doing here!

However… I feel like recently I have been engrossed in more and more discussions about church issues, traditions, systems and scripture interpretation debates. Worrying about who’s upset about this and who got offended about that, and so on. I believe these discussions, though necessary, are really just distractions from the enemy to keep us off the mission…. The Great Commission.

Think about Peter getting out of the boat to walk on water with Jesus. He was doing great… but then he got distracted. He took his focus off of Jesus, who was his goal, and also the source of his faith and power. Instead, he started focusing on the drama that surrounded him. Fear then took hold of him, and he lost faith, he lost courage, and he lost his supernatural buoyancy… in other words, he lost his miracle.

I pray that is not the case for us. As we grow in Spirit, faith, and size, and as we strive to “be all things to all men, so that we might win all the more to the Lord”, (as Paul states it) we will certainly have to navigate touchy subjects, gray areas, and challenge traditions. But when bringing God glory and bringing the ministry of reconciling to God’s lost children is our goal, these issues and distractions significantly lose their importance. We must stay focused.

I believe this is why the Spirit urged Timothy, the young evangelist, in 2 Timothy to flee youthful lusts, as well as abstain from pointless arguments and controversies. These arguments and controversies were so prevalent in these very new and rapidly growing churches, who didn’t even have their own Bible yet. Timothy is urged to stay focused on the work of an evangelist, to fan the flame of the Spirit in him, to preach the Gospel at all times, and to remain totally focused on Jesus.

We must do the same!