A Dangerous Distraction
“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” Romans 8:14
A pastor friend of mine and I were chatting one day about how Satan tries to distract servants of Christ with chaos, drama, problems, and such to get us off course and out of position of being ready, available, willing, and yielded to serve Christ. He and another pastor, along with their wives, and I, who all cross paths in some of the ministry work we do, were all being bombarded with Satan’s tactics to pull us away from God and His will in our service work to Him. No more than an hour or so before my friend and I were chatting, Satan had used a massively chaotic scene to try to garner the attention of all of us in his latest diversion tactic. He not only wanted to pull us away from our ministry work at hand, but to drag us away from our focus on Christ and grounded-ness and peace in Him, so that we would be ineffective once we returned to what God had called us all to do that morning.
My long-time pastor who is now with the Lord taught me long ago Satan will try to create fires all around us to convince us to get out of our position of availability to God by running around trying to put out fires. Satan failed the morning I spoke to my pastor friend, but I’ve had plenty of failures along the way in which I lost my focus on God and my ministry work and needed to repent and return to a position of peace in and yielded-ness to Christ. One of my biggest pitfalls has been a temptation I believe we all have faced at times. A dangerous distraction. Dangerous because of how subtle and deceptive Satan is when he tempts us with this kind.
Sometimes Satan tries to distract us and pull us away from God and the work He has specifically given us as individuals by tempting us to say yes to other perfectly good, positive, sincerely godly opportunities to serve in areas where God has NOT called us specifically. There is nothing wrong with these good opportunities, but God has sent other people to serve in them whereas He has called us to serve where He wants us to serve. When we say yes to opportunities God has not called us to, we are acting in disobedience and are distracted from where God calls us to serve. Even if we can still complete the work He has in fact given us, along with saying yes to the distractions, we may not have the energy, focus, wherewithal, resources, etc., to serve at the level and to the degree with the right heart God desires in the work to which He has called us.
I believe some of you reading this are struggling with this very thing. I was convicted by God’s Spirit to write this, and pray you will hear His Spirit speak to you. Seek the Lord. Study His Word. Pray. Listen. Let Him lead. Obey. Let go of what you need to let go. Be wholly available to Him!