How prevalent are distractions throughout each day?
“Distractions from what?” you might ask. This is a crucial question and has different answers depending on one's understanding of the purpose, goals, or value for his usage of time. In considering a workplace setting, there is firstly a mission for why any organization exists. Because of that mission and strategic and tactical goals of the business, there are reasons for workers being present (whether as employees or volunteers) and expectations for the time they spend on the job. As a desk employee, when emails come through my inbox, I have the responsibility to decipher their weight and value for my attention. With some emails, I hit “Delete” because the message does not fit within the purposes or responsibilities of my job and, therefore, would be a waste of time and energy to look at. Such an email is considered a “distraction.” The ability to decipher between something’s value is vital to my time being used efficiently as I work. As with the email example, some messages are evident in their identity as a distraction. They appear as a scam or irrelevant sales promotion. Other emails, however, are more difficult to determine, as they come in different forms. Some emails are from people requesting that I do something for them. Some are from people who are directly involved with the purposes of the organization (i.e. coworkers or clients), and some emails are interruptions but are also in line with our organization’s mission. The Covey Management Grid from Steven Covey's book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” gives four categories in which to divide tasks: “Important and Urgent,” “Important and Not Urgent,” “Unimportant and Urgent,” and “Unimportant and Not Urgent.” Focusing on what is “Important” is strategic and effective for achieving intended results; moreover, tasks within the “Unimportant” categories can be distractions that steal from the success or reality of goals coming true. In my personal life, I have come to the end of many days realizing that I had wasted a lot of time. The desire for a particular evening could have included beneficial endeavors, but instead, I allowed my intended-“brief” time online to progress into clicking from one website to another until it was time to go to bed. Maybe you don't deal with this, but it seems the opportunity, weight, and responsibility of time on Earth is often underestimated by humans. It can happen in various ways, but the fact that humans can waste time is vital to be on guard against! James 4:14 says this: “…you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” As I get older, I’m realizing the reality of verses like this—that life on Earth is short and quick. However, within our brief moments, time is available to be used purposefully! Jesus was very intentional with his time. He lived with priorities while also discerning how to handle many interruptions that came about. He lived in light of eternal life and therefore made decisions based on long-lasting consequences, and He valued life as a short opportunity, knowing that His death would be coming soon. He did not wait to make intentional choices nor withhold intimacy with God or love for people. He knew His mandate, lived it, and was the forerunner example for our potential. In John 15:4, 15:10, 15:12-14, and 15:16 Jesus said this: “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you, unless you abide in Me…If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love…This is My commandment, that you love on another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you…You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain….” I don't know about you, but I want to live a fruit-bearing life with fruit that remains. I want to live out God’s full potential for me--being in relationship with Him and choosing to love people according to His lead. What would it look like if each person alive undoubtedly knew his purpose and discerned through daily distractions that vie for his precious time? Studies have shown that humans, for the most part, are unable to multi-task well. Although many of us would like to put our own ability up for debate, it’s biological. (Ask Google.)
While driving my car the other day with the radio playing, one of my favorite songs came on. In the meantime, I was on my way to the store, halted in the road because of a passing train, and grabbing my phone to look up ingredients for the recipe I was going shopping for. Not to mention that using the Internet while in the driver seat is illegal (I'm sorry, Lord), I stopped and thought, “Wait, I like this song! I want to enjoy it while it’s on.” I put the phone down to take advantage of the moment--to listen, sing, and worship. Why is it that we can feel bored--or rather, anxious, insecure, or in need--when we are not multi-tasking? Going back to nature in looking at God’s design, it seems that He created us so that we cannot physically multi-task well. I wonder if He did so because He wants us to understand and embrace the gift of a moment, to realize the miracle of the present, and to have full opportunity to experience the joy of now. God is a God of opportunity. Whether our now is a trial or joy, He allows such as opportunity to grow, experience, and do good. To live. Living now engages the imagination--you hardly have to tell a child that. To live now can spark wonder. To live now, rather than attempting to speed up production--I was going to look at the recipe once I got to the store anyway--is a gift. Concerning the concept of delight in Psalm 37:4 where the Psalmist said, “[d]elight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart,” it seems that we can experience God’s presence in each moment and behold that which He places in front of us. He wants us to live now. The writer of 1 Timothy 6:17 wrote, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy.” If multitasking to be more productive is a myth, what’s not to say multitasking to enjoy the moment more isn’t the same way? What’s in your present that beckons your focus? What one thing or person has God placed before you--now--to enjoy? The present moment is precious. James 4:14 says, “Yet you do now know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” When our presence is intentionally present in the present, we’re actually living life’s moments, and to live life seems to be a Psalm 37:4 “...[desire] of [the human] heart,” or mine at least. May our presence embrace the precious present--to seize the opportunity of life in the now. Walking with God is a relationship of seeking and expecting, thanking and finding, speaking and listening--mostly listening. Walking with God is learning the voice of and trusting--through humble obedience--Him who loves with a never-ending, never-failing Love. Walking with God is a life engaged in honest and intimate communion with Father, to know His heart and share with Him one's own. Life is in walking still--help me to do so Lord, I pray. "Be still and know that I am God." - Psalm 46:10
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