Lord, Help Me! I Get So Distracted!

I always say I won’t get distracted by my phone, then, I go to check a text, an e-mail, or to look something up and end up following a rabbit trail of videos I never intended to watch. I’m addicted to it, as it were, and I often find myself lamenting that! The thing is, it’s not just my phone that distracts me. I have intentions to do good, to serve God, and to seek His will out, and, like with my phone, I get distracted by a rabbit trail or 2 (or 7).  I WANT to do well, I WANT to do right, I WANT to follow God’s will, but there’s so much that seeks to pull me away! There are bills to pay, there are things to do, errands to run (if I’m honest, entertainment to be had, and that’s a big one), and I get so caught up in my ow business, that I ignore being about the Father’s business.

Paul addresses this:

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. (Romans 7:13-25)

We get distracted because it’s our natural habitat. I can’t use that as an excuse, though! So what do I do? What is my hope? I need to focus on Jesus, His example, His life, His self-denial, and His sacrifice, burial and resurrection. I need to submit myself to the Father’s will, taking every thought captive, submitting them to be tested against the Scriptures so that every thought, word and action is submitted to God, and I need to trust in the leading of the Holy Spirit as I dive in to God’s word and follow Jesus’ example. I died, was buried, and rose again through Christ Jesus in Baptism, so I need to submit to the One who is regenerating me and justified me with His blood! If I am born again, then I need to seek, not my own will, but the One who set me free from sin and death! I will get distracted, but I will not excuse or submit to my flesh! I will flee towards Jesus Christ who still raises the dead!

Ephesians 2:1-10

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.