Distraction...

 

• Google defines it as being “unable to concentrate because one's mind is preoccupied.”

• The Free Dictionary says that it is “having the attention diverted.”

But the best explanation I found was Wikipedia’s:

“Distraction is the divided attention of an individual or group from the chosen object of attention onto the source of distraction. Distraction is caused by: the lack of ability to pay attention; lack of interest in the object of attention; or the great intensity, novelty or attractiveness of something other than the object of attention.”

As a friend, colleague and fellow parishioner shared his sense of finding the people of God, to be distracted I found my spirit in agreement.  i-Phones, cable TV, Social Media, and issues for which one cares but has no influence, all place a claim on people’s lives.  They consume a lot of energy and even more time.  Life in our culture is generally very demanding.  But the thing that seems to me to play the biggest role in the distraction of our spiritual lives is our jobs.  Our jobs are demanding.  They want first place.  They demand to be the priority.  And we let them take precedence over our family, over our social lives, our hobbies.  And then we find ourselves wrestling for time with our family or friends (depending on our priorities).  And then our social interests.

In my own small town community that places such an enormous value on social capital - whether or not you were seen at this event or the other, whether or not you are interested in music and the arts or something of less value, and just what you will sacrifice for the sake of the community - we have such competing priorities that our commitment to our spiritual lives plays second fiddle.  We argue that the arts feed our spiritual lives but really they are just more of a crutch that excuses our inattention to our spiritual lives... unless music and shows are our gods.  We argue that our social engagements are important for our business relationships.  And then we are always struck by the family time we have sacrificed in this competitive economy.

We have lost sight of two significant Christian virtues/influences.  One the Sabbath element and the other vocation.  In Israel’s formative days there was no Sabbath.  No one took a day off.  And God basically says to them, "Look I took a day of to admire my creation, you should too."  But we don’t. Or if we do take time off, we use it not to admire God or his creation but to make up to our families and friends all the time we wasted at work trying to make a living while failing to make a life.  And God, the One who has instructed us to “remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy" - that is to set apart for thanksgiving to God and admiration of Him and his work - barely gets a nod.  We might make a token statement that we are admiring his creation while we're golfing, hiking, or spending time with our family but truth be told we're likely just resting and simply enjoying the "day off" and precious little time of the day is actually spent talking to God or praising God or even mentioning God unless it's invoking his name in vain.

The second element of this, I said was vocation.  The word vocation comes from the Latin “vocare” meaning “calling.”  The idea is that there is a calling or summons from God to do a certain work.  We now interpret it as vocation and think, erroneously, that it refers to our chosen profession.  But we cannot chose a calling.  We raise our children with the horrible question “what do you want to be or do when you grow up?” instilling in them a self determination devoid of “calling.”  When God calls, income become insignificant.  God is trusted to provide.  When vocare or vocation is determined the assumption is that if it is God who guides it is God who provides, in accordance with His good will and His knowledge of our needs not our selfish understanding of desires.  These days our culture is focused on what I like to do, what I am good at, what will make me a lot of money, etc. and then we rationalize that we can do anything for God’s glory, that it is just as important to be a scientist, or a self-employed mechanic or business owner or lawyer as anything else.  And having invested so much of ourselves into this self actualizing existence we follow it with all the energy, intelligence and imagination we can muster, never thinking to ask if it truly is what God is calling us to do.  How many of us entered into our profession with a clearly directed sense of God’s calling rather than a hoped for approval from God of what we had chosen.

And then our life pursuits overtake our faith.  And since obedience was never a part of our vocational calling we don’t see it as an essential part of our day to day living.  We don’t get up in the morning praying because we know that we are unable to do the work to which we are called without God.  Because it wasn’t God that showed us the big work he wanted us to do which would make us dependent on him to do.  It was something we chose to do.  And perhaps if we do it well enough we will honor Him and He will be happy ("He should be," we reason) that we took the time to say we are doing it for Him.  And work becomes a priority in our life, not faithful service.  And then we neglect everything else to get the job done.  And our family suffers, and our friends suffer, and our faith seems to fizzle, because truth be told we don’t need God to do our work.

This sort of distraction is what makes church nonessential.  We don’t need it to be successful according to our understanding of success.  And our commitments to the church are secondary to our work, to our family, to our friends, to our dreams, or it is just another way to help us feel better about ourselves.  And then we buy the line that we can be spiritual without being religious.  Or we build a straw man of "organized religion" into which we throw everything that we don't like...

And Jesus weeps over Jerusalem and over our homes, and over our country, saying:

“Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.  For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side  and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” [Luke 19:42-44]

Do we know that we have been visited by the Lord himself?  Do we realize the choice we need to make?  Do we make that choice out of a sense of God’s direction?  Do we even have a sense that the Lord is with us?

I pray that amidst all of the distractions in life, you take the time to say “no.”  No to your business, no to your family, no to your friends, no to TV, no to your i-Phone, no to the radio, no to life ... so that you may say “yes” to Jesus.  And to learn to trust in him in all your ways.  To acknowledge him in all your ways.  To seek him while he may be found.  For the day is coming when we shall have to give an account.

Go back and look at the picture at the top of this post.  Do you see Jesus?  Stare at it hard for at least 30 seconds.  Then shift your attention to a white wall.  See if you don't see him more clearly.  Spending time looking at, paying attention to, listening for Jesus allows us to see him in so many more settings.  I close with this prayer from Peter Marshall:

Father, I am beginning to know how much I miss when I fail to talk to thee in prayer, and through prayer to receive into my life the strength and the guidance which only thou canst give.  Forgive me for the pride and the presumption that make me continue to struggle to manage my own affairs to the exhaustion of my body, the weariness of my mind, the trial of my faith.  In a moment like this I know that thou couldst have worked thy good in me with so little strain, with so little effort.  And then to thee would have been given the praise and the glory.  When I neglect to pray, mine is the loss.  (-From the Prayers of Peter Marshall ed. Catherine Marshall).

Rejecting Mediocrity…

In a sermon on Romans, John Piper concluded by stating that we can either be killing sin or sin will be killing us. And I quote from the conclusion of that sermon:

In Romans 6:2 Paul poses the question, “How can we who died to sin still live in it?” And his answer is that we can’t. If we died to sin by being united with Jesus in his death, we can’t stay married to sin. The faith that unites us to Christ disunites from his competitors. The faith that makes peace with God makes war on our sin. If you are not at odds with sin, you are not at home with Jesus, not because being at odds with sin makes you at home with Jesus, but because being at home with Jesus makes you at odds with sin.

Therefore, I call you and urge you, for the sake of being God-centered, Christ-exalting, soul-winning, justice-pursuing, passion-planting, coronary Christians, don’t live according to the flesh but “by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body.” Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.

The choice is easy – either be actively killing off sin in our life or allow it to be killing us. Sin is like the water pot in which the frog gets placed. The tepid water is comfortable, but as it begins to heat up the frog, being cold-blooded, acclimates and adjusts his body to the different temperature until is too late and he is boiled alive. And so it is with too many people claiming to be Christian.  One must ask the question – Why do we sin?  We don’t have to.  We are not compelled to.  We're only tempted to it. It is ALWAYS a choice to sin, to act on our desires, to act OUT our desires, to seek to fulfill our fleshy self-perceived needs…when all the time, God has given us a way out.  

The book of Romans concentrates on a theological issue called Justification. It is the reason we are NOT condemned. It is the reason we can turn from sin.  It is what breaks the bondage we have to sin.

In the movie “Papa was a Preacher” a young employee of the local grocery store watches as an old drunk steals food. The young man’s pained face shows that he wants to stop the old drunk, but as the drunk looks up at the young man – they both know that each other knows what is happening and the drunk just shrugs his shoulders and leaves the store.  The young man is then seen putting money in the cash register till to pay for the drunk’s pilfering, accepting the responsibility to make right on the situation. The grocery store owner has apparently watched all of this transpire and allows the the young man to pay for the stolen goods only saying “old John and I have an understanding.” Old John is justified not by the agreement of the store owner but by the actions of the young man.  He is justified, when he could be condemned.  Justification and condemnation are opposites.

For the Christian believer there is "justification" rather than "condemnation." This is God's declaration based on the atoning work of Christ on the cross and our resultant faith.

Because the actions of Jesus have fulfilled the Law for us; because the perfect sacrifice was made for us - our sins were atoned for and the price was paid on our behalf - we are not condemned. 

We, also are told that we are therefore no longer in bondage to sin. We are therefore free to not sin, to choose obedience, to seek to live in the Spirit by the power of the Holy Spirit. The old life is gone and a new life has begun.  We put off the old and put on the new...

We, therefore, CAN AND WILL, if we believe, be about the crucifixion of our flesh and all of its desires… Spiritual people live according to the Spirit. Sinners according to the flesh.

• Fleshy people love fulfilling the desires of the flesh: they are all about good eats, good drinks, comfortable living, convenient engagements, they love satiating their senses of taste, smell, vision, hearing, feeling…
• Fleshy people seek to experience the matters of the flesh while they may. Yet live, all the while allowing the cancer of sin to spread and to eat away at their destiny…
• But those that are Spirit (Holy Spirit) minded people seek spiritual nourishment above everything else.
• Spirit-minded people put prayer, fasting, witness, worship, praise and service ahead of everything else, ahead of all fleshy matters like eating and comfort, and convenience.

We are holy. We simply need to tell ourselves that and live accordingly!

Seeking the fleshy matters, we are told, is enmity (that is active opposition toward or hatred of God)! The desires and interests of our flesh tend to drive us too seek to care for ourselves, to preserve ourselves, rather than trusting God for that.

Those that seek to fulfill the desires of the flesh cannot please God we are told in this lesson. They chase after the whims of the flesh and in so doing are carried away from God’s provision for them even though they may believe they are pursuing God’s will for them.

But those in whom the Spirit of God is pleased to dwell don’t become entangled in those types of concerns: what they shall eat or what they shall wear or where they shall live, or what they shall drive…because God has promised to provide all of those things for the Spiritually-minded person…as He sees fit, maybe not as nice, as big, as tasty, or as comfortable as we might like, but as He sees fits…as he knows our true needs and what is best for us,  so a part of this is a matter of trusting him to provide sufficiently for our needs more than our desires. It means letting go of our desires for the sake of serving him, not following our desires and thinking we can serve him at the same time. And it may and probably does mean living on a whole lot less than we would selfishly choose for ourselves.

Those who trust in God to provide, gladly put away these fleshy matters, they put to death those desires, the sinful side which dares not trust God to provide in these situations, the sinful side which dares not risk allowing God to decide how much is enough or putting God to the test in these matters…

It is only by the Spirit of God that we are, in fact, able to overcome these selfish, sinful tendencies.  In His resurrection Jesus broke our bondage to sin. NO ONE HAS TO SIN. Sin is always a choice; a choice to act out on the desires which confront us. Conscious or unconscious though that choice may be, habitual or non habitual, it is a turning away from God to care for ourselves, to seek our own well-being, putting our desires for ourselves ahead of God’s desires for us.  Seeking what we want or like over what God may want for us.

Likewise obedience is always a choice and may always be chosen over sin, consciously or unconsciously, habitually (if you have been a believer long enough) or through a struggle (if you are still young in the Lord).  With maturity in the spiritual life comes that ease of avoiding sin. But you must choose to label sin as sin and to treat it accordingly – as the very thing which drives you away from God’s presence, strength, and power.  Sin and God cannot abide. It’s one or the other.

There are, we therefore see, two ways of dealing with sin. The first way is to deny it as sin, to label it as acceptable to God and to perish. The second way of dealing with sin is to fight it as sin and to live.  Sanctification is the process whereby we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, becoming increasingly more useful to Him as we become decreasingly useful to Satan.  But it requires an earnest, almost insatiable desire for the things of the Spirit, a chasing after God, as seeking His will above absolutely everything else in life.

We are either killing sin or sin is killing us.

Knowing the will of God requires having His discerning Spirit at work within you.  He has promised it to those who seek it but you must seek it above everything else in life.  It is that pearl of great price. It not only cost Jesus His life but it will cost you yours at least the fleshy side of it.

Seeking the Spirit of God is the most costly endeavor ever.  But it also has the biggest payoff, as well. It means laying aside the sin, the desires of the flesh which so easily entangle. It means setting aside your safety, your health, your well-being, your financial security, your friends, your family, and everything else YOU think YOU need. Are you willing to lose everything for the all surpassing greatness of knowing and living in the will of God and knowing therefore that your salvation is secure? In knowing that your salvation is secure is the greatest freedom one can find anywhere, the freedom to risk any and every thing…

One time while I was in Kenya, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Valerie Elliot Shepherd. Valerie and her husband Walt were serving as PC(USA) missionaries in the Congo.  Valerie and I had a chance to talk about her father Jim Elliot and his martyrdom for the Kingdom. As he wrote in his journal when making the decision to enter the mission field in 1948 – “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Jim and four other missionaries had made contact with the now famous Huaorani (or Auca) Indians of Ecuador – a fiercely unreachable group who killed every outsider who had ever attempted contact with them. After making, what they thought was a friendship by flying overhead in a Piper aircraft and lowering buckets of gifts, and receiving gifts from the Huaorani as well, they opted to land their plane and eventually had a visit which included taking one Huarani for a ride in the airplane.  On January 8, 1956 they set down for another visit and were never heard from again.  Their bodies were found downstream torn apart just as  wings and fuselage of the plane.

Life was difficult for Valerie (just 10 months old at the time) and her mother Elisabeth Elliott. She was clear to point that out in our visit. But while she regrets never having truly known her father, she does not regret his sacrifice.

Some of the missionary community there in Ecuador, stayed on, hunkered down and continued to try to make contact. In time relationships, even friendships were developed.  Souls were saved. The five families who had lost their husbands and fathers were eventually invited back to receive the apologies of the Aucas and to allow the Aucas to seek forgiveness for those actions.  A tear-filled celebration of reconciliation was held and to this day the Huaorani remain steadfast in their faith, having even become evangelists to other surrounding tribes.

Because five men chose to allow the Spirit of God to work within them without regard for their well-being or safety.

Now I am not suggesting we need to go to Ecuador, or Mexico, or even to Raleigh. But, rather, let us consider what great things God can and will do with and through you, if we will but put away our sin, our concerns with the things of the flesh, the worries you possess about our future, what we will wear, what we will eat, whether or not our health will hold out. News flash. It won’t.

But what, I dare to ask, will we hear when you come face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ?  Will he say “away from me I never knew you. You were always too busy doing for yourself, you never really needed me.”

What do we need to give up, today (and forever) to hear the voice of the Lord.  What are we leaning on, what are we depending on, what do we think we have to do for ourselves because God may not?

We are invited into a mess; a mess of personal disinterest, of personal irresponsibility, of foolish recklessness, when we cast all of your cares on Him who cares for us.  Do we want to obey or do we want to decide for ourselves? Do we want to be the one who is able to and who will eventually live on God’s holy hill as Psalm 15 describes the righteous person?  Or are we happy walking through the valley of the shadow of death? Do we want to know the depth of His Spirit? The breadth of His love?  Are we willing to fast from our savings, from our vacation, from our professional pursuit to seek God’s will? Will we pray? Will we worship? Will we give sacrificially? Will we risk everything to know Christ the crucified; the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, even becoming like Him in His death so as to somehow to share in the glory of His resurrection?

Make the decision today, to put the sin behind you AT ANY COST. Change homes, change jobs, un-retire, use your hard fought economic success to advance His cause and not your own. Commit yourself today to constantly keep His word before you, to give up those things which keep you from attending Sunday School, from worshiping while on vacation, from daily fervent Bible Study and prayer, or from any and everything which keeps you from clearly hearing his voice and following where he rightly leads.

God neither overlooks nor disregards our sin. Our sin separates us from him. As long as we continue to sin we make a mockery of the cross.

He does forgives sin, but only as we repent, that is turn away from it…leave it…and turn to Him.  You can’t love God and live in sin.  The two are incompatible.

You are either killing sin or sin is killing you. Which is it?

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

May the Lord have mercy upon all of us. Amen.

Eliza's Rest

I planted two trees today as tears filled my eyes. The depth of emptiness was almost unbearable. If not for the grace of God...

The first tree is an Eastern Redbud (screen left) donated by Leah Rosser Terrell in memory of our beloved granddaughter Eliza Gail Hallead. The second tree is a White Dogwood (screen right) a favorite of Carol's and mine and also a reminder, to me, of my grandmother and grandfather Hallead's house that bore a dogwood tree in a special spot.

Log Cabin site on flat

The trees were planted at the opening of a space I am developing on the property called “Eliza’s Rest.” It’s a place of quiet, away from the residential house at the edge of the woods. My hope, one day is to build a small one room log cabin (with bathroom) there that will act as a place of refuge or rest; a place apart.

 View out back from cabin site                              View out front from cabin site

I rarely talk about this loss, largely because it is just too painful. I am not a believer in the “talk about it” therapeutic model. That has never worked for me, sharing with some stranger "how that makes me feel" is a waste of breath. But conversing with the Lord brings great relief. He knows my pain. He knows my thoughts. And he alone can deliver me in times of distress. I’m comfortable with that. He’s the only one capable of understanding anyway. He’s the only one who truly knows me. And that is enough.

I've got the wind chimes that will soon be placed.  And a hamock that will be hung...for now...And I'll have my conversations with the only one who is able to do any sort of healing, of any kind. 

"...thanks be to God! He gives us the victory 

through our Lord Jesus Christ."  

1 Corinthians 15:57