While driving to town today, without hesitation, I preceded to do something 70% of all women do in the car. I started to put on my makeup! I remember being a kid and watching my mom, or my aunt, or when old enough-my big sister, put on their makeup while driving me to school, or running errands, or what have you. The more experienced veterans often see no use for a rearview mirror, while other women know how to strategically place their mirrors 70% on face, 20% on baby in the backseat, and 10% on the road. This being a method that has worked for generations and generations of women!
While applying the last little bit of my "beauty" (the lip gloss of course) it occurred to me what a potential distraction it is to put on your makeup while driving! (yes, i chuckled out loud just now) It also brought to mind that probably do ANYTHING while driving that isn't, oh...DRIVING, is considered a distraction.
This past weekend at the retreat I spoke at, we talked about distractions of life. Distractions in a classroom for example might be your best friend beside you trying to talk to you, your empty stomach rumbling in anticipation of lunch, an unscheduled fire drill in the middle of your math test, the kid 4 seats up who blows his nose throughout the entire class, etc, etc. Distractions are EVERYWHERE!!
Other than putting on makeup while operating a large motor vehicle, what are some other distractions on the road? Playing with your car radio? Texting/talking while driving? A crying baby in your backseat? Roadkill you have to dodge? Running out of gas on the side of the road? All of these distractions are things that keep you from getting where you need to be.
So clearly, there are distractions in all areas of life from the important things like taking a test or driving to a meeting, down to the less important things like trying to watch your favorite tv show or playing a hard video game. If there are a million distractions per every incident in life we try to do, how many of those do you think apply to our relationship with God? We are not only distracted by the distractions of life, but we let even the things that seem important to us become distractions in our relationship with God.
For example, we KNOW that nothing is more important than God and our relationship with Him. But do we treat it as important as we know it should be when we have say, a serious boyfriend who demands all of our time and attention? When we have an extremely important deadline to meet in school? When we are in the worst fight we have ever had with our best friend? When our mom is sick and we have to take care of her? Jesus is the one who said to let the dead bury the dead in Mathew 8! He said this because there is NOTHING that is more important than following Jesus Christ. So if you are not following Him, then everything else is rightly considered a distraction.
There are times when I feel the Holy Spirit inside me urging me to just open up and talk to God, but then a good song comes on the radio and I would rather turn it up and sing to it as loud as I can. There are times when I feel the Holy Spirit asking me to run away with Him for a day, but there is something happening amongst my friends or family that I don't want to miss so I turn Him down. There are times when at the end of the day, I look back at all I have accomplished and am proud of myself for being so productive-then I sadly realize, I went the WHOLE entire day without acknowledging my Love and Creator once.
DISTRACTIONS. We are all guilty of having those things in our life that keep us from falling deeper in love with the Lord, and we might have those things in our life that are even hindering our relationship with the Lord. Whether it be facebook or a relationship or drama or work or your children or whatever--they are all distractions!
Have you ever experienced watching a mom or dad or coach or even another player on the sidelines of a child's game, cheering him/her or their team on? Sometimes I feel like we push God to the sidelines of our lives, and He is over there screaming "Meg! Pass me the Ball!" or "Meg, I love you so much, won't you just give me some time today!?" or "I know you won't put me in today but I will never stop cheering you on, Meg!" Does it break your heart to know we dribble or run that ball straight across the court or feild, with our eyes so glued on the PRIZE that we never even look to see who is around us?
We have it all wrong, you see, God is not supposed to be on the sidelines. He is supposed to be the PRIZE. And our eyes should be SO fixed on Him, that we bypass all of the other players and obstacles and just, crap of this world, and focus on getting to Him! He is begging for our attention everyday, and it probably makes Him very sad when we pay Him no attention.
I encourage you to re-visit the things going on in your life. Eliminate the excess garbage that doesn't belong (that should be the easy part). Then re-evaluate how you are spending the rest of your time. If you see that God has no set place in your life, then you should change something. Because there is infinite blessing in doing things His way, and even if you feel like it is wrong to put Him before your marriage or your kids or your family, it isn't. It is what He calls us to do. Because if our relationship with Him is out of whack, then the rest of that stuff will just fall apart anyway.
Give God some time this week. He misses you.
In Him,
Meg
