The Dangers of Distrac…..wait, what?

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          We live in a world of distractions. Your phone is one stop shopping for distractions. Scores for the game, actual games, the internet, and even other people. Normally this isn’t a big deal, but distractions can be very dangerous because they render the most powerful man helpless.

          The word distract comes from the Latin dis meaning “away” and trahere meaning “draw.” Distraction being something that draws you away from what's important. In the Bible the word only appears twice. The Greek word is περισπάω, περι the preposition for “around” and σπάω which means “draw” It's used for when peter draws his sword to cut that guy's ear off.

          You get the idea though, when your attention is drawn away from what’s important you’re left vulnerable.  The city of Ai learned this the hard way. When Joshua lead the Israelites to take Ai in Joshua, chapter 8, distraction was the tactic that God chose for them to use. The Israelites split off a small force that approached the city in the open and then ran away. The people of Ai were so incensed that they immediately sent out their entire army to chase after this small force that simply approached the city and left. When they did this they left the city defenseless. The just remainder of the Israelite army moved into the city, set it on fire and headed out to surround the army of Ai. The city of Ai was destroyed so completely that scholars still don’t know for sure where it was. Which is crazy because archaeologists have been able to find most ancient cities, even ones that were destroyed completely.

          The army of Ai lost sight of what was important. The job of an army is to protect their country, or in this case, city. Ai lost sight of that and instead of protecting the city, they ran out to go attack some “punks who were back for more.” They got distracted and were drawn out to where they would be vulnerable. Even a powerful, experienced fighter can be easily knocked out if the allow themselves to get distracted.

          In life it’s hard to tell if you’re losing the fight because the knockout’s don’t come all at once. It’s slow and it’s subtle; each little distraction leads to a little loss. Those losses build up over time until it’s overwhelming how often you check your phone, or how much time you spend on Facebook or surfing YouTube. Before you know it your focus is stolen from your family, your church, your life.

          In Mark 4:18-19 Jesus explains the parable of the sower, where the seeds fell among the thorns. Jesus says that the thorns represent the worries of the world which choke out the seeds and make them unfruitful. As Christians that’s our job, to bear fruit for Jesus. Getting your head full of these other things can wither your fruit. It steals nutrients (precious time, focus, and energy) from growing fruit and wastes it. Stay focused and stay fruitful.

Don't tear down that wall!

          I was reading through Nehemiah 1 recently and was struck by how Nehemiah mourned the loss of Jerusalem's walls and the scattering of her people. You see, walls are vital to ancient cities. They were your first and best line of defense against invading forces.

          If you didn't have walls you essentially didn't have a city. This is because basically any army could just roll into town, set up shop, and take over without a fight. The walls around an Ancient city structure and security from outsiders, defines the borders, and creates a safe place within it's walls.

          Taking this concept to the home, your leadership is the wall protecting the spirit of your family. Your leadership protects your family from negative outside influences, defines the boundaries of what is acceptable and creates a place where it is safe to relax and be at ease. Build your wall, lead your family.

Let God teach you.

Take a minute and read, Psalm 25:4-14. It's okay, I'll wait......

             Almost every other verse says that God will teach you. My mom always says, "If it's in the Bible more than two times, it must be really important." Now, I don't claim to know all the ways God teaches us and how all of that works. I do know this one, little way.

             "Before anything else and above everything else, humans are relational creatures."

-John Fuller

            God created us to be in relationships with each other. It's through those relationships that we can learn about our relationship with him. Throughout your life there will be moments when a verse or situation from scripture comes to mind at a critical moment in your life when your circumstances directly parallel the scripture. Those are the moments to look for and learn from.

             My oldest son was only a day old and I'm changing what was probably my fifth diaper. I'm an expert at this point and still can't figure out how to properly wrestle with a kicking newborn. They have a way of pulling their heels to their butt, get poop on them, then kick out and spread poop everywhere. He keeps kicking and all I can think to say to him is, "BE STILL!" and my brain finishes, "and know that I am God." When we struggle, sometimes we just get poop everywhere and we make it more difficult for God to help us. It's when we relax and let God lead that the best things happen. 

            That's my favorite learning anecdote, what's a time in your life when God taught you something through life?

A Love so Profound...

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                   So, my wife and I were at our local hardware store the other night when the sales associate, an older man named John, came over to see if we were "finding everything okay?" I was busy agonizing over which drill bit to buy when she strikes up a conversation with him.

                   Now, my wife, Ebony, has always had this God given ability to open up complete strangers. She tells him that we've been married for 8 years and he kind of chuckles to himself, as if to say, "That's nothing." I know this because it's the same chuckle I get when someone proudly says they've been married for 6 months, or even a year.

                   Well, now we're curious. My wife then asks the obvious question, how long have you been married? John gets this blank look on his face while he does the math. Slowly and deliberately he says, "43 years." That's awesome, and my wife and I are quick to tell him so. That's such a long time to be married. It's less and less common for marriages to last that long these days. Here's the most interesting part: when Ebony asks about John's wife and what she's like, he gets silent and just looks.

                   He had no words. He had been married so long and loved her so much, he didn't have words to describe it. She was just his wife, that's all he could articulate. He then went on to explain that he couldn't even explain how or why they got married. "We just fit," John said, "We just seemed to go together and it felt right." I can only hope right now that one day I might experience a love for my wife so profound it very literally defies explanation.

 

Father's Day

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I wrote this for a Father's day contest at my Church.

       Psalm 127 is possibly the greatest passage about family in the Bible. It cuts right to the heart of a successful life, and a successful family. "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." Which is to say that if God is building the house, those who build it need only calmly continue to work and God will make progress happen. 

        In Japan the way they teach children to play the violin at age 5 is to teach the mother violin in front of them starting at age 3. On page 29 of Men of Integrity July/August 2016 There is a devotional about praying with your family as a way of modeling Godly behavior and establishing His authority over your household. I feel that the author didn't use the best verses he could have, and falls short of explaining how powerful modeling really is (I know these are really excerpts from books and not originally written as standalone devotions).

         Modeling is so powerful it could be successfully used as your only parenting strategy. Deuteronomy 6:9 speaks of God's commandments,  "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Teach with your life, all day every day. This is so important that God repeats himself in 11:19. When you sit, when you walk, when you lay down, and when you rise. Teach by living.

         I learned the heart of modeling in my first year of marriage while my wife was pregnant with our firstborn son. I'll start by describing what my dad was like when I was ages 5-7. He had a beard, long hair, wore a bandanna to hold his hair back while he worked, he worked third shift, and had a wretched short temper. I was married in the Spring of '08. By that summer I had grown a pony tail, grown out my beard, was working third shift at a factory, started wearing bandanna's to hold my hair out of my face and struggling with a lifelong short temper. I stopped one day and realized how effortlessly and unintentionally I became my father. It dawned on me that the man I am, is the man my son will most easily become. The man my daughters will be drawn to, for better or worse.

        I could use this, learn to overcome my temper so I could help my son overcome his. The easiest and the hardest way to parent is this: Be the man you want your son to be, be the man you want your daughter to marry. God will work everything else out.