Distractions

186/365

As I sit down to write this blog this afternoon, I can’t help but notice this passage:

Luke 10:27
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” – NIV

Last night, I dreamed about work. All weekend, my mind has been preoccupied with the array of stress that is waiting for me at my office on Monday. I fall asleep thinking about it, I wake up thinking about it and it is never far from my consciousness throughout the day.

It is Sunday. Of all days to be consumed with earthly dealings, I haven’t even taken a moment to realize that today is the Lord’s day. I am convicted when I say that He has not been a thought in my head all weekend. No, I have been obsessed with analysis, procedures, presentations and the like. I have not loved the Lord with all my mind. I have not loved the Lord with all my soul. Kind of forces the question: Have I loved the Lord at all?

Most Christians walk a fuzzy line between devotion to God and devotion to other things. We believe in our hearts, of course, that we should be wholly committed to God and love Him fully, and we very much desire to do so. But, at war with our undivided love for Him are other “attractions”…and deep down, we are finding ourselves perfectly satisfied with a little interruption.

Ironically, the grand deception of the enemy is that the type of passion God longs for would rob us of pleasures and certain privileges. Satan wars against the kind of love that is exclusive, and joining him in this fight are our self-centered instincts that also want to share the love. We are divided in our hearts, and are miserable as a result.

The Bible tells us how we can be complete and how we can come to know the utmost pleasure and satisfaction in life: Love God with all your heart. The deception of the evil one can have both immediate and eternal consequences on our souls.

May I suggest that we all cling to the instruction of the Word as though our life depended on it, because in many ways, it does.