Distractions - Leland Zehr

Good morning. It's good to be with you. I want to remind you

and myself that treat you Jesus name gathered and because of Him, not because

it's Sunday or that we're conservative men and nights, but because of Jesus.

Thankful for you visitors that are here to help fill in for some of the

others of us that are missing. Welcome you here. The two devotionals this

morning went well as an introduction to the message this morning, my throat is

a little vulnerable, so bear with me. I'd like to before I give

an introduction to the title of the message, I want to tell you a

little story that happened to me a little over nineteen years ago. Happened in

Liberia, Africa. We were there, Allison was like nine months old.

We were there on a work project building a new building. And how they

do often on those type of deals, there's a day somewhere in there where

they take people out to the city to the market. Let you see the

city and do a little shopping if you care to. And I don't remember

what city it was in. I didn't look it up, but it was

a big city and I just remember looking over the market was on kind of

the side of a hill, and where we parked or something was up above,

and you could just look down over this hill and it was just a

sea of black people and their colorful clothes and just this moving of bodies.

And I went into that market and I don't know why I was alone.

We must have split up or something. And at that moment, I was

I was all alone. I wasn't worried. I was just going to do

a little shopping. And I hadn't I hadn't changed my money to the Liberian

dollar. I just had US dollars, and so that was the first thing

I needed to do, was find someone that would exchange my money from American

dollars to two Liberian dollars. And looking back, now, you know,

one white white man in the middle of a bunch of black people. It's

yeah, you know how somebody you know how that is trying to exchange money

on the open street. It's probably not the smartest thing to do, but

I was I wasn't too worried. I was going to be alert and I

was going to negotiate a good rate and be careful. And so that's what

I did, and I found a guy on the street or else he found

me, I'm not sure which, and he was willing to help me exchange

my money, and I started negotiating with him, and I think I knew

approximately what the exchange rate should be, and at some point we finally settled

on a rate, and it was a good rate. I felt good about

it, maybe a little better than the going rate, which should have been

a red flag, but it wasn't. I just thought it must be a

good negotiator, and so we started the process. And how that is.

There he was the main guy, and he had a couple of helpers,

and then there was a few observers and just a small crowd, friendly,

smiling people. But I was watching and I was careful, and as the

small crowd was around me there, I decided how much to change, and

I don't remember how much it was, but they gave me the Liberian dollars,

a stack of it to verify that it was the right amount. So

they counted them in front of me, and I walked very attentively, and

it was the right amount. Then they graciously offered to just rubber band it,

fold it, put a rubber band on my dollars, and I said,

yeah, that would be nice, and so they did that, and

I gave them my money, and they gave me that band of bills I

stuck in my pocket, and we said goodbye, and they smiled and said

goodbye, and we went our separate ways. I walked down the street through

the people, and it's probably not more than about five minutes later, I

went into a little shopping place and was looking at something and decided I would

purchase an item or two, and I pulled out my wad of bills and

pulled the band off, and I started flipping through them, and almost immediately

something didn't seem right, and so I double checked and I looked, and

slowly started sinking in on to me that there was a whole bunch of little

bills which should have been big bills in this stack, and I had watched

them count it out, and I was a bit confused, but it started

to dawn on me that they had they hadn't given me enough money, and

I think at that point I was still thinking, well, they made a

mistake, And I optimistically went back out onto the street and went back to

where i'd met them, in the middle of these people, and looked around,

trying to see if I could find this exchange person, still thinking that

maybe there was some way I could we could get this right. Of course,

no, but he was there. They were long gone. I don't

know if i'd recognized him, if they would have been there, And I

started to immediately I felt very a mix of anger and embarrassment, a little

bit stupid, and the realization started to sink into me as I reflected on

what happened and how that could have been. I replayed that in my mind

and I remembered how it all went. But one little part of it that

came back to me was when they had given me the bills and counted them

out, and they folded him and they asked me if I wanted a rubber

band, and I said yes. I think it was right in that moment

that one of the helpers or somebody talked to me, bumped me. I

don't know what, but there was just a little commotion and it was friendly,

and we visited out. I maybe said something, I don't know what

he asked me, and in a few seconds they handed me the bills back,

and I guess what they did is they took the right amount of bills

and had another set of bills with a rubber band on them, with all

the little bills in it. And so in that moment of supposedly putting a

rubber band on my money, they just swapped out the pack and gave me

it had the right bill on the outside, it was about the right thickness.

I took it like a naive white man, stuck it in my pocket

and was happy, and they were happier, and they left. They robbed

me in broad daylight with a smile on their face and a smile on my

face. There was no violence, there was no threats or fear, but

they had distracted me, and they took advantage of me. And this morning

I want to talk about distractions. I was assigned this subject for a youth

conference and so it's been on my mind and I want to I want to

just give a little bit on that this morning, to in a world that

we live in where they're full of things and activities and that are jocking for

our attention and our time and our money, both both physically and spiritually.

And so a couple of things I want to think about is how do you

how can we identify distractions? How do you even know if you are distracted,

and how do we maintain a focus in today's world amid all the distractions.

The thing about distractions are one of the things is that you're often not

aware of it when you're in the middle of it, and that's just the

reality of it. You it's often after the distraction, after the moment has

passed, that it sinks in that you were distracted it. Distractions are a

person or an object the direct one's attention from something else. It's a diversion

of attention. It's something that another thing. That's something that makes it hard

to pay attention. A distraction something going on it's hard for you to focus

on what you should be focusing on. It's the process of diverting attention of

an individual a group from a desired focus, a mental confusion. Those are

some definitions of distraction. I want to read some verses in Matthew twenty four

and twenty five. If you care to, you can turn there and follow

along. I think I'll jump in at Matthew twenty four thirty six, and

these are the words of Jesus, and he was talking about different things,

the end times, the coming of the sun of man, and so I'll

jump in at the middle of this Matthew twenty four, verse thirty six,

and I'll read into chapter twenty five. I guess to the thirteenth verse.

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels

of heaven, but my father only. But as the days of Noah were,

so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in

the days, For as in the days that were before the flood, they

were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. And to the day

that Noah entered into the ark and knew not until the flood came and took

them all away, So shall also the coming of the Sonaman be. Then

shall two be in the field, and one shall be taken, and the

other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill, the one shall

be taken and the other left. Watch. Therefore, for ye know not

what hour your Lord doth come. But know this that if a good man

of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would

have watched and would have not suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore

be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not,

the Son of Man cometh, Who then is a faithful and a wise servant,

whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat

and due season. Blessed is that servant, whom his lord, when he

cometh, shall find so doing. Verily, I say unto you that he

shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant

shall say in his heart, my Lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin

to smite his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken,

the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for

him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall

cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be

weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the kingdom of Heaven be like unto

the ten virgins which took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom.

And five of them were wise, and five were foolish. They that were

foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wires took

oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom terried. They all

slumbered and slept, and at midnight there was a cry maid Behold, the

bridegroom cometh, Go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose

and trim their lamps. And the foolish said, unto the wise, give

us your oil, for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered,

saying, not so, lest they are not less. There be not

enough for us and you. But go ye rather to them that sell,

and buy for yourself. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came,

and they that were ready in with him to the marriage, and the

door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord Lord,

open to us. But he answered and said, barely I send to

you. I know you not watch therefore, for you know neither the day

nor the hour wherein the sun of man cometh. And I believe Jesus here

was giving a reminder, a warning of the possibility, the reality, the

likeliness of people being distracted in life. He said, a couple of times

here, watch, have a watch, and look, be awake. What

are you looking at? These people here that he talks about in chapter twenty

four, as in the days of Noah, were distracted with normal things of

life. And that's another thing about distractions. They're often not bad things in

and of themselves. Often they're fine things, maybe even really good things,

but they can distract us from the most important thing, or the thing in

the moment that is the most important. In those days, they were eating,

they were drinking, they were marrying, they were starting families. Nothing

wrong with any of that. Noah was probably doing most of that as well,

but it was an order of a lack of proper focus and priority that

these people had a lack of the fear of God and obedience to him.

One thing we could talk here, and you'll probably notice as I go through

here, you might wonder why am I talking about physical distractions or spiritual distractions.

But as I thought about this and studied this, and we as humans,

they're very much interwoven. Our physical distractions are often have spiritual implications.

Not always. There's some There is some physical distractions. Maybe you're talking with

your wife at an airport or on the phone and you miss the exit,

or some things are not spiritual implications and that, but a lot of the

the physical distractions, in some way or another are interwoven with our spiritual life

and our spiritual distractions the physical eye. And I want to talk a little

bit about the eye this morning. What we what we physically look at and

focus on, impacts our spiritual life. We know that in a lot of

different areas we could talk about the opposite is also true. What where my

heart is and where my desires are affect what what I tend to look at.

So they in fluence each other, and they feed each other. Depending

on what you look at either feeds the inner spiritual life or feeds the flesh,

and so those things are both true. They both affect each other.

The devil has been busy from the very beginning, and it stood out to

me in Genesis how he used that the sight and the eyes to draw Eve

in. And the devil isn't necessarily trying to just get us to be full

blown sinners. He's fine with a little bit of distraction, with a divided

heart with divided values, to get you to look at something that you shouldn't

be looking at. That's good enough, because if you can get your eyes

on the wrong thing, it's just a matter of time before the rest of

your life and follows. And I want to read the few verses in Genesis

three. Here as I thought about this subject this time, it stood out

to me in a different way Genesis three, five through seven. And this

is the interaction of Satan and Eve in the process of her fall, jumping

in at verse five, for God doth know that in the day you eat

there of, it is a satan thereof. Then your eyes shall be open,

and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And then

verse six says, and when the woman saw, when she saw the tree,

that it was good, and it was pleasant to the eyes, and

the tree to be desired to make one wise, then she took the fruit

thereof and did eat, and gave also to her husband with her, and

he did eat. And the eyes of them both were open, and they

knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves

aprons. And it seems to me that Eve was maybe kind of holding her

own at the beginning of the conversation. She said, well, God said,

we're not supposed to eat the fruit. And then the devil kind of

questioned it. But then at some point either he or she he lured her

or she turned her eyes and looked at that fruit. The more, she

looked at that fruit and saw how beautiful it was, her desire grew,

and as her desire grew, she eventually followed through and plucked that fruit.

That is true in both the physical and the spiritual. I don't know how

to I imagine it's the same with you in food drinks. Driving down the

road, you might also start thinking about a coffee or a snack, or

a food or other things. And if you don't decide to bring that under,

if you drive through the drive through and decide that you're going to look

once and then decide you know about where that's going to go, the desires

of the eyes will lead us. And the same as in all other kinds

of areas as well. When you get on your phone and you start messing

around in things that you shouldn't and you tell your things that you're not going

to look at. If you give your eyes to something, it leads you

you will not have a little bit more to say on that a little bit

later. So our eyes are a very important part of this thing of distraction,

both in the physical and in the spiritual, to get our eyes off

of God, to get them on other things. Matthew six some more verses

from Jesus, and just a little snapshot here Matthew six twenty two to twenty

four. The light of the body is the eye. If therefore then I

be single, the whole body shall be full of light. But if then

I be evil, that whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore

the light that is in they be darkness, how great is that darkness.

No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and

love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the

other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. And this versus interesting if you

look at that, and I would have loved to take the time to just

do a drawing and a diagram a little bit about how the eye works.

Our eyes are amazing and complex, and we don't even think about it.

We just get up in the morning and we go through life and they work.

Unless you have eye problems, and you become very aware of how precious

your eyes are. But they are are amazing and miraculous, how tender,

and yet how instrumental they are in our lives. Jesus is saying, the

eye is the window to our bodies, to our minds to our whole bodies.

And so you think of the eye as the window what passes through this

eyeball of yours and goes into your being. And the way the eye works,

the pupil dilates and it lets light. That's the other crucial part.

Without light, your eyes don't work with light. I guess light passes through

that pupil. I don't know how that all works. That it goes through

goes through a series of lenses, and when it hits the back, I'm

not sure if that's like the retina area. They say that the image is

upside down at that point, but then as it goes to your brain,

then your brain corrects that. And so the eye is just amazing. It

can It'll dilate from maybe two millimeters to eight millimeters, depending on the amount

of light that it needs. The window opens to let more light in if

it's dim, and if it's bright then it restricts. It doesn't get too

much light in and damage your eye. One thing though about the eye that

it can do amazing things. It can focus. I can look at something

really close and focus within six inches away. I can look at something in

the back and it'll compensate the distance, and I can focus on that and

everything in between. It's it's just auto. But the one thing that our

eyes are limited in, and that is focusing on one thing at a time.

You cannot focus on two things at a time. And you can try

it while I'm up here. You can. I could I brought it.

I wasn't if I bring by place one hundred dollars bill for you to look

at, since that's what Jesus was talking about. And I can put my

Bible right up here, and we can put it right beside each other,

and you can try all you want, but your eyes will dart back back

and forth. You cannot focus, like focus on both of them at the

same time. And I can bring them within an inch of each other,

and you still can't focus on both of them. You can see them both,

but one will be in your focus and one will be in your periphial.

That's just the way it works. And I can I can glance out

across this auditorium and in in a second or two, I can see just

one hundred faces or whatever it is, but I can only focus on one

at a time. Our eyes are limited in their ability to what you focus

on. I think Jesus was saying that in this chapter in Matthew, you

cannot serve two masters. And we can try to, and we can dart

back and forth from them, but we cannot serve two masters at the same

time. One will have priority, one will have precedent, one will be

the supreme authority or the controller of our life. And so it is with

the physical and the spiritual, the things that we look at our eyes,

one thing will hold our attention at a time, and sometimes we try to

do too many things with our eyes. And another little story that happened just

this last week. I didn't tell my family. I don't know if it

was intentional or not. It just didn't get around to it, I guess.

But I was driving on ninety nine eight coming home, and I won't

go into all the details for various reasons, but I was distracted. I

was by myself, and I glanced away from the road for probably, I

don't know. It didn't seem long to me. A second or two and

I heard just a fang and my eyes popped on the road. I was

going down the road. I didn't know what happened. I checked my rearview

mirrors, and when I looked, there was a car behind me. Everything

like I looked in my passenger mirror, it was full of tight against my

pickup. And as I processed that, I had just crossed over a bridge

with a guard rail and a sign, and evidently in that moment when I

passed through, I had drifted over close enough to where my mirror caught that

sign and it just slammed it into my pickup. Shot But most things were

fine. I was moving down the road, no damage was done, but

it reminded me that is how our focus is. I didn't have my eyes

where they belonged at the moment. Where my eyes had been was fine.

It wasn't a bad thing, but it wasn't appropriate for the moment. How

life is. There's lots of those things that aren't bad, but we need

to focus at the right things at the right time. We understand this in

a physical sense, But what about our spiritual eyes? What about our spiritual

distractions? Are we aware? Do we know? Are you? Are you

spiritually distracted? And how would you know if you were? Like I said

before, distractions are often something we're not aware of until it's over and then

and then it's it's passed. The moment has passed, and then we can

look back and realize and the damage, if there's damage, is done already.

I'd like to look at just a few current day practical things, maybe

at least from from my standpoint, this will just maybe reveal my own heart

on on a few things that maybe we can check. You know, we

won't know if we have distractions in the spiritual sense unless we are honest and

are willing to check and to be aware and to be conscious of the ability

the possibility. One thing that comes up in this chapter that Jesus quoted in

Matthew six, and I just I just mentioned it as coveteousness. He talked

about no man can serve two masters. A coveteous heart, a heart that

is always desiring things or money or pleasures. There's a lot of things a

heart and our eyes can covet. But when when our heart is that way,

we are prone and susceptible to the glitter and the distractions all around us.

M A wondering I. The world is full of glitter and flashy things

and entertainment that is there for the taking. All we need to do is

reach out and take it. And when we have a coveteous heart, and

our heart is just one of desire and things, and it sets us up

for constant distraction. There's a never ending buffet that's before us. Another thing

is our phones. This is just a practical thing, and this is one

that I would say is definitely interwoven with the spiritual and the physical. We

can see it all around us. You can go into any group, any

place, any restaurant, airport, or workplace or youth group, maybe our

family, and the phones have our attention. Heads are bowed reverently before the

phone, and we're oblivious when we're looking at these things. We are unaware

of what goes around us. And I should say myself, I'm right there

with the rest of you. It's a tool and it's something we rely on

and we use. And so I'm not trying to say that it's bad,

but I think we need to think about that. God only knows what they're

doing to us. Spiritually, I don't know. I think there's the ability

to have them and use them for the glory of God, but I would

say that that's probably in the minimum. We need to be very aware of

the ability of what these can do to us. I was just reading an

article came across it, I wasn't looking for it recently, and a study

of a real recent study of what social media is doing to young people.

And this isn't on a religious or a church or god level of any kind.

This is just simply on aus state mental health level of states that are

suing people to try to hold them accountable for the damage that is being done.

In the last ten years that especially the children and the youth, have

been impacted tremendously by social media. It's it's a it's a it's an addiction.

It's causing all kinds of problems. It's it's causing depression, it's causing

unhappiness, it's causing suicide, loneliness. And as I read about that,

I wondered if that has impacted the church a little bit, even a little

bit. I think we are are way less involved in that, I hope,

but even if a portion of that impacts says that way, people often

are a little bit lonely. It's it's them in their phone, is their

fellowship, And then and then we want why. I don't know, but

it's maybe something to at least consider or to be on guard against the brain

of a child isn't fully developed, and so I think it's extra impactful to

them. But again, the phones, and you could have multiple sermons on

just that subject. That what you look at on the phone. But again,

your eyes are very involved. What you read, what you watch,

what comes across that is going through the window of your eye and into your

body. And Jesus said, when light comes in, your whole body affects

everything is light, and when the darkness comes in, your whole body is

dark. And so you can't think you can take things. We can't think

that we can take evil through our eyes and somehow say that we're light.

If our eyes are feasting and reading and looking at things that are ungodly,

then our whole body's full of darkness. And those are the that's distractions.

They happen fast, endless, scrolling, bam, there it is, and

the next thing you know, you're down a path, way down where you

never meant to go when you started. But those attractions, they know how

to set those things up, the algorithms, and now one of the latest

things is that you got twenty four hours to read this thing, and so

it's going to go away in twenty four hours. That amps the pressure up.

If you want to read it, you got to read it within the

in the day, otherwise it's going to be gone and it just baits and

hooks and draws people distractions. Another one the fear of men, and this

can be all kinds of things, but just the approval of men. To

always be conscious of what people have thinked and the pure pressure and approval ratings

instead of what God thinks. To let that kind of out prioritize. Somebody's

upset with me, so I got a cater to them or they're and pretty

soon you're just running around in life trying to keep people happy or get approval.

And it's a trap. It's a distraction. It draws you all multiple

ways at once, and sometimes we just need to stop and to remember,

yes, we care about people, but we keep our eyes on Christ and

first, and then we try to relate to people best and not let that

get switched around. It's a it's a heavy task master to be under the

fear of man. It's an impossible thing to accomplish anyways, if you are

striving for them. Another one, and then this one is for me.

As I thought about some of these, I thought stages of life impact very

much, and so this maybe just reveals me. But another one that I

think makes us very vulnerable to distractions is a hurry and over busy life.

Our entrepreneur entrepreneurs and inventors keep inventing things and tools and equipment and computers,

and our world is just speeding up faster. We can get way more things

done in a day than we used to, farm, way more acres than

we used to, build more buildings, whatever it might be, mowmore lawns,

drive more miles on the truck, all these labor time saving devices.

But we know that it isn't giving us more time. Things that just ramp

up unless we are intentional about it. And with a busy life, I

know that's very much from experience. When I'm ramped out to the max,

the stress levels of the responses are more negative, the distractions. You're more

touchy, your people become more disposable because you've got to get this list done.

Hurried and busy life. Corey ten Boom once said, somebody kindly mentioned

a book to me lately. It's been a while now, The Ruthless Elimination

of hurry. If you have a problem with rushing around like I do,

you should read or listen to that book was very good. I don't know

if it helped me yet, but I keep thinking about it. It's my

goal that it helps me. Corey Tenboom said in that if the devil can't

make you sin, he will make you busy, and I think there's a

lot to that. That's tying back into the distraction. If you can't just

get you to sin, if you can get you scattered out and busy enough,

then you're on the verge of sinning if you're not. Another one said

quote, hurry is not of the devil, it is the devil. And

I'm not sure I thought about that. That's one hundred percent If it is,

me and him have been hanging out a lot, and I don't like

that so but I think it has a point. Hurry is very much one

of the devil's games, and that doesn't mean to be lazy, to be

not productive. I think the Bible would balance that out. There's many healthy

kinds of I think busyness to be get up and go and serve and work

and all those things, so it's not sitting on your front porch doing nothing.

But I think just this overly busy drive that has a stressed out is

what makes us vulnerable. So how do we maintain focus in today's world amid

all this this noise and movement. My points here are very basic and you

probably just almost want to yawn and go back to sleep. But I think

that's the problem of today. As people are christiandom today doesn't like self discipline.

We like our whole society has set us up for ease, next day

delivery, turn of the knob, to get comfortable, whatever it is in

the spiritual life. We kind of expect that to be. And so these

things are things we repeat over and over again. But they just make a

difference in your life. They make a difference in my life. And they're

the things that Jesus said. And the first one is just to watch and

pray. Watch and pray watch is to wake up, be alert, look

around, think, just engage your brain and think about it. Be aware

as you go out in the day of the possibilities of distractions. Don't just

be a sitting down for everything that comes along. Be on your guard,

watch and pray, and we are we are spiritually lazy by nature, and

so we have to we have to make choices, and we have to make

decisions. And we tend to blame people when I'm discouraged, and well,

it's because he or she's not doing this, or because the church is that,

or because my wife is this and my job and I'm just I'm just

blue and discourage and I'm just I'm just barely making it. Well, have

you been reading your Bible and have you been praying? Well, oh,

no, I'm too discouraged for that. Well, you know, those are

the things that happen over and over again, and I don't know how to

fix that. You know, other people can't do that for your personal walk.

And I'm not saying because you read your Bible and pray every day,

life will be easy. But it keeps our. It aligns our focus.

And especially if you get up in the morning and read your Bible and you

get down on your knees and pray and you actually do that with sincerity,

it just you got into life more prepared, more alert for the possibilities of

distractions. You can see a distraction because you've been reminded of what the Bible

says, and the Bible talks a lot about remembering, and it gives ordinances

and things to do in the Old Testament and then in the New where we're

just so forgetful. Just because you read through the Bible last year doesn't mean

it's going to do you that much good right now. Of course, it

all helps as it gets into your mind, but we need that freshness of

the reminder. Oh yeah, I mean it happens to me all the time.

I story of the Bible, Well, I read that before, but

that that is very pertinent and fits and is like wow moment just reading the

Bible. It's nothing new, but it's very important. Probably one of the

most important things that we can do is the Bible says somewhere that an old

times God came by the prophets, and then Jesus came. Today we have

the Bible more than what all of humanity had in our past, and yet

it's so neglected that reading the Bible is what is another one that we need

so much. And with that, I would say quality time if I could

say it that way. Margin in our lives again, back to the opposite,

A hurry. You know, I don't know if you've ever read a

page or a book. You probably don't think about it, but almost every

book has margins around the edges and between the letters. Some are wider than

others. Some have wide margin Bibles and you have gaps between the words.

Is that a waste of paper? Of paper? No, it makes it

adds purpose to the world words. If you don't have any spaces in any

margin, it's just this busyness of life and reading, and it's hard,

it's hard to concentrate. There's just too many words. And so life is

a little bit that way. We need to create margin times when we're not

just doing things and we can meditate on what God might have me to hear.

Again. Our eyes are the guide to that. Our eyes on the

word, our eyes on God, our eyes on prayer. Watch mm hmm,

think about think about Jesus is coming again? Like we read do you

do you get up in the morning and drive to work and just sometimes I

don't near every day with some other just it does me good to think he

could come today. Wow, what would that be like? And am already

and it just kind of turns your mind towards eternity. Our eyes again,

I want to just bring us back to that. Our attention. And I'm

talking about distractions and where we look, and eye contact is so important in

conversation, and I think about that especially. I think we all crave it,

whether we know it or not, especially when we're trying to talk to

somebody. You know, how does that make you feel. I'm trying to

have a conversation or you're trying to have one with me, and I'm looking

around and then I'm looking back at you, and I'm looking at my phone,

and you know, it's we don't like that. We want attention.

And with my children, I've noticed that if I can get their eye contact,

let me right in the eye, they are much more obedient. If

we're walking down a store and there's toys all about their height and they're just

engrossed in these things, or they're watching something on a phone or whatever,

and I say their name and I say to come. Often it's just like

deaf ears. And I don't know if they're just so they didn't hear,

but they're very distracted. And sometimes I'll just say Max, look at me,

look, and then he'll pivot and he'll look at me, and then

I can say come, and then he'll usually come. But if I just

say Max, come, and he's engrossed in something. Most of the time,

I might not even get a luck, and that's maybe bad training.

But my point is eye contact, and I think that is true with if

God is just always in our perfial vision. We go to church and we

listen to it on the fly, the background noise, We pray, but

he's not there's no eye contact, there's no dedicated time, there's no focus.

Then it's it's hard to connect. It's hard for him to talk to

this, it's hard for us to remember him. Do we have oil in

our lamps? Like Matthew twenty five said the ten Virgins, And I think

that oil in our lamps is just a lot of these things, having an

inner life, taking the time to have God fill us with his words,

with his Holy Spirit, with his guidance. Five were wise. Five just

went around with their empty lanterns. I don't know what they were thinking.

I guess they just figured that they would get oil when they needed it when

it got dark. But we know how that story worked out, and they

were shut out. Just a couple more things talking about trying to avoid distractions,

And this might sound a little strange to you at first, but intentionally

strive to be thankful and content, and that gives a little opposite it maybe

of the coveteous idea. But when we can come to a resting point in

our life. Yes we have needs, Yes we would like some other things

in life someday whatever, there's always that part in life, I suppose,

but a fairly fairly good resting point in our heart. We're content. It's

not how we would want it to be. Maybe our health, maybe our

finances, maybe our house maybe, but I can't change it. It's where

I'm at in life. I'm just gonna be content and I'm gonna be thankful

for the things that God has given me. That sounds simple, and it

is somewhat, but that changes things night and day. A mindset that is

content and thankful compared to a mindset that is coveteous and critical and grumpy is

it leads in two different lives, two different directions. As you got into

the world, contentment thankfulness a wonderful offensive weapon. If we can just strive

to ask God to help us to be that, we will kill a bunch

of birds with one stone, Jesus said. Another one could say Jesus said,

lift up your eyes and look for the fields are white and ready for

harvests. And there again, I think it's just we grovel in our day

to day things, and they're not bad things, but we need to have

that side when we are dealing with people and life, that we lift up

our eyes and we look and we think and we see people as people and

souls and needy people and witness as we have opportunity, and the Lord leads

us in these relationships, and that those are all things that just kind of

help cultivate a right focus. And then my last one is learning from our

past distractions or past failures. And I don't I don't know how sorry you'd

feel for me if I would be distracted, if I'd go back down on

the road and and and hit that same guardrail next week doing the same thing.

At some point we need to learn from our distractions and take them serious,

especially if they're they have spiritual consequences. That it's we can't call them

distractions anymore. Someone once said, and I can't remember the wording, but

the first time we do something, it may be a failure and a mistake.

But time number two and three is a choice we have. We either

learned from it or we don't, and we need to take responsibility in that

to learn from our If if we got distracted last week doing something, then

if we're prudent, we will we will try to give that some thought and

to try to adjust our lives to keep that particular distraction from happening again,

because sometimes we can get to the point where we maybe enjoy our distractions.

It's yeah, it just got me again. Instagram got me again. I'll

take it off and I don't put it on next week. But what do

you know it happened again. Well, of course it happened again. You're

liking it. That's why you put it back on. And that's why we

look at that. We can't enjoy our distractions and then expect to avoid them.

Hebrews twelve one and two close with these verses. Wherefore, seeing we

also are compassed about with a so great a cloud of witnesses, let us

lay us, Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which does so

easily beset us, And let us run with patience the race that is set

before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith,

who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross,

despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne

of God. Thank you for your attention. Let's have a closing song.