Spiritual Distractions

Transcript

Hi Everyone! Welcome back to this second series of the Living on Prayer podcast. I’m Emily and in this series we’re going to talk a lot about life’s distractions. But primarily I want to spend the most time around the spiritual side of our distractions. And why I want to do that is because in preparing for this second series I’ve spent many, many months trying to create and publish these episodes but yet it took me forever to get them on the air. There are a lot of reasons why it took so long but what I can summarize it down to in one word is primarily “distractions”.  I’ve been distracted by so many things that have kept me from creating the content, from recording it, editing it, and publishing it. These distractions are many. Things like my real-life job, my family obligations, some physical injuries and ailments, of course the financial aspects of putting together this type of side hustle, but most importantly the spiritual distractions. And while I was trying to create this second series I had many other topics I was writing and recording for this series and again I would get distracted for one reason or another and the series just wouldn’t come together and looking back now I realize how these distractions impacted me not just in creating this second series but in so much of my life and I wanted to share this with you in this series. 

Now I’m keenly aware of distractions in real life. I think we all are, right? But what are spiritual distractions and why and how do we get those? Well, that’s what I want to talk about in more detail. But in order to understand spiritual distractions we need to understand everything about them. What are they, who and where do they come from, when do we get them, and how if at all can we stop them or prevent them in our lives.

Again before I dive into this series on distractions I really have to reiterate how much time I lost in being distracted this year and not publishing and producing this second series. It’s a great testament and example that I’ll use during these episodes. I have plenty of material to discuss for this podcast, I really do. Other topics, other content that is ready to go and able to be published. But for many reasons it wasn’t. Even though God asked me long ago to keep moving forward with this podcast, I didn’t publish the second series right away. But He is a gracious God. A loving God. And I am anything but perfect and I knew that I was delaying what He had asked me to do. I was being thrown many obstacles in my life that were keeping me from doing it easily. These are not excuses, just the truth. I told Him these obstacles as they came about and one by one He would remove them for me until finally they weren’t there anymore and I had no other excuses or reasons. I had nothing but opportunity and resources and was able to sit down and put together these episodes and bring this second series to life. And as a very small example, this is a way that God clears our obstacles, removes our distractions, helps clear the path for us to accomplish what He intends for us to accomplish in our lives. The thing here I want to point out the most about my example is I had to bring my distractions to Him and ask for help. Ask Him to assist me. Trying to do anything ourselves won’t accomplish it. <pause> You know for a minute, maybe a while longer than a minute really, I felt like a loser honestly. Like really can’t I just do this simple thing that God asked me to do. I’ve already done the hard part. I already know how to do create a podcast now. I did it once so I can do it again right? But why can’t I get this second series out? It was like I just couldn’t finish creating, I couldn’t finish all my thoughts, I couldn’t even feel at times like I usually did, I was getting distracted by so many things constantly in my everyday life. It was just very odd for me. But I didn’t want to take these problems back to God and tell him I couldn’t do what He asked me to do. It was like going back to my boss and telling them I couldn’t get my job done. And if you know me, you’d know that I’m a very high performer in life, in every part of life, so in my day job admitting to my boss that I couldn’t do my job would be failure. That’s not me. I’d figure it out and not only would I figure it out, I’d be a success at it eventually. Even if it took me working to the bone, 24 by 7. But I would never go to my boss and let them know I couldn’t do my job. I not only overachieve, I help others achieve. 

But you know, I realized that’s a spiritual blind spot for me and I’ll talk about what I mean by spiritual blind spots and how those blind spots can hurt us a little bit later on in the series. Anyway, so in this case, I had to humble myself and go to my spiritual boss if you will and admit that I needed help and remind myself that He wasn’t going to fire me. He wasn’t going to love me less or abandon me or think less of me if I needed help or couldn’t get the job done without some direction. Those were thoughts I had from my human experiences and I had been conditioned to react by those experiences. From having been hurt by people in the world who had looked down on me or abandoned me or thought less of me because I couldn’t do something or be something they thought I should. But that’s not God. He doesn’t ask us to do something we can’t do. He doesn’t give us more than we can handle and He always provides unlimited guidance and resources. On top of that we are allowed this amazing relationship with Him that gives us everything we need so we can be everything He created us to be and do everything He asks us to do. Why we doubt that, I don’t know? But I doubt it too and I’m extremely embarrassed to say so but thankfully He is there to love me and forgive me each and every time I come to back to him humbly and we move on in our relationship.   

So let’s talk a bit more about distractions in general. What is a distraction exactly? Well, let’s use a very basic real-world example to start. Let’s say we’re driving in a car down the road, we’re typically trying to get from point A to point B. Pretty straight forward. We get in the car, we go from Point A to Point B. That’s our purpose. Ok. Now let’s say we get in the car to go from Point A to Point B and while we’re driving on the way from Point A to Point B we get a text on our phone and we look away from the road to the phone to read the text or maybe while we’re driving a deer runs out in front of our car and we swerve to miss it. Both the looking away from the road to read the text and the deer running out in front of our car making us swerve are distractions on our drive to Point B. This is a very basic real-life example of distractions that creep into our purpose. We’re driving somewhere and a distraction comes into the purpose that can cause us to get off course, possibly have an accident or just swerve off the road, potentially hurt someone else or ourselves, or maybe just be delayed to our destination. Could be just a few minutes delayed. These distractions could be even as simple as an emotional or mental distraction, changing our moods, elevating our heart rate, changing our mental focus, as small as they might seem but if you’ve ever had a deer run out in front of your car and missed it then you know how that can make your heart race. And if you’ve ever received an unwanted text, especially while driving, you know how that can change your mood quite quickly!

Ok, so now let’s understand a basic spiritual distraction. We’re going to start with the most basic of all and that is the lie. Lies are THE most basic spiritual distraction there is. But let’s put that into perspective because lies look different for most of us. However, the most basic spiritual distraction is believing lies that you’ve likely heard the longest in your life. Why is that? Because believing those lies for so long has distracted you from your purpose the longest. Here’s one of my examples. For me, it was that I couldn’t do something on my own. I couldn’t be independent. What’s the opposite of independent? It’s co-dependent, right? I believed I needed someone to survive in life, anyone really. And that was the furthest thing from the truth. You know it doesn’t matter where that lie was rooted from or why I believed it or how I eventually broke free from it. What matters is that it was a lie and I believe that lie. I believed it for a long time and it caused me a lot of pain and suffering and heartbreak and bad decisions and caused me to go off course in my life for quite some time. And unfortunately there were many casualties that came out of believing this lie too. 

And that’s not the only lie I’ve fallen for. Oh no, there are so many others! I could sit here and tell you stories and have the biggest pity party of all time. Ha! But I don’t play that game. Because if you listened to the first series of this podcast, then you’d know that forgiveness has already been given to all parties involved including myself so I don’t have time for pity parties anymore. But maybe you are still believing the lie or lies in your life like I was. Maybe one of your lies is also codependency or maybe it’s that you’re not lovable enough or you’re not smart enough or you’re not beautiful enough or you don’t make enough money or have a good enough job or you’re not enough in some other way. Whatever it is, I’m here to tell you that it’s a lie. Spiritual lies start early and often like weeds in our hearts and minds and just like weeds they will grow as we allow them to be watered. So how are they watered? They’re watered by us and by others through negativity, through reinforcement of those lies. By continuing to allow the same lies to seep into your mind and hearts over and over again they are being reinforced. By allowing yourself and others to say them and think them and to believe them you are allowing those weeds to grow. What then happens is that the spiritual grass, the positive things, the positive affirmations, the positive words you hear from others, the positive things God tells you, the positive things others tell you that you want to believe, that you might even feel like are true, that grass can’t live long because the weeds keep growing faster. Those weeds, those lies, have the ability to spread wide and far into your heart and mind and kill the spiritual grass you get. That spiritual grass is so precious. God sends you resources, to grow your grass. He’ll send you everything you need to help you grow that grass but if you keep watering those weeds you’ll kill that grass. It’s free will and completely up to you to decide how you will take care of your spirituality but this most basic spiritual distraction of lies is the one to watch out for the most. It will eat up your heart and mind and you can lose your entire life span believing the lies you are told and then get to the end of your life realizing that all of your spiritual grass died and you didn’t accomplish anything God planned for your life. And listen to me when I tell you this, I can promise you when you stand before the throne on Judgement Day and you have to answer for your life’s choices, you will be able to see clearly everything that occurred in your life in hindsight and God will show you that you had opportunities to understand every lie and make a decision to keep living with them or to take action against them. So I’m here to tell you now, once you understand the lies in your life, don’t make the mistake and continue to live in them. Once you have the wool off your eyes, the blinders off, you have to take action. That’s when God looks at us and says “now what are you going to do?” 

And that’s when I will point you back to my example at the start of this episode. You don’t take action alone. God isn’t expecting you to do that actually. He’s expecting you to come to Him and say I need help, please remove my distractions, my obstacles, help me do this because I can’t do it alone. That’s what He wants to hear from you. Humble yourself and know that you can’t do anything alone but that He loves you enough to help you when you finally bring it to Him.

So let me close out this first episode today I want to remind you that we all have distractions in life, both real-world distractions and spiritual distractions. As we continue through this series, we’ll talk more about the many other spiritual distractions that come into play in our lives, when we typically see those, and how we can potentially stop them or prevent them. While we can’t prevent spiritual distractions from occurring, we can learn more about them and prepare ourselves for them so we know how to defend ourselves and others. 

And let me remind you all that God loves you so much. His love is unconditional and never failing. He is here to help you all day, everyday so in the midst of your distractions please reach out to Him for help. This series I will be closing each episode with various scriptures from the book of Psalms, 73 chapters of  which are most notably written by King David. King David was a mighty warrior, not just a mighty King and he quite often brought all of his praise, worry, sorrow, faith, and trust to God. So much so that God called him a man after his own heart. I felt it was fitting for this series to use the Psalms to close these episodes. So today I will close us out from Psalms, Chapter 27, Verses 1 and 14 “The Lord is my light and my salvation – so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble? Wait patiently for the Lord. Be brave and courageous. Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.”

Thank you all again for joining today’s episode and this series. Hope you’ll join again for the next episode. Until then, please be safe! We’ll talk soon.