TOO MANY DISTRACTIONS

30.04.20 11:20 AM Comment(s) By Christian Education

This current season has removed many of my usual points of information, interest and connection. I have found this change unsettling. However, perhaps this is exactly within God’s purposes for this season. Our society has many distractions, and these can so easily drown out the still small voice of God. I respect the wise counsel, which was once passed on to me from ‘a mother in Israel’, that one can always use waiting time as an opportunity to praise God. I am aware of several sisters who have spent their recent time standing in queues to pray and bless.

Our government has instructed us to be at home, and I see God’s purposes in this. Our face-to-face relationships are more authentic and therefore more difficult to manage than the largely unaccountable exchanges on social media. Our family relationships are more costly but also more precious.

In Psalm 46:10, we are entreated to: ‘Be still, and know that I am God’. Also, we find in Matthew 13:16-17 that if our ears are attuned, then there is much wisdom for us to receive. What could be more important than hearing what God has to tell us? Nevertheless, we so often dishonour God when we invite the riot of distractions from other sources.

Earlier in Matthew 13 (verses 10 through to 15), we see the disciples expressing their frustration with Jesus for using parables. The style of God’s communication to us is all about the story and not so much about the context. In our world of instant gratification, we have allowed ourselves to be satisfied with short sentences, and therefore have become nearly incapable of receiving some of Paul’s profound but multi-branched teachings such as Ephesians 1:3-14.

Waiting on God is not the first desire of my flesh, but this is the craft of the treasure hunter! (See Matthew 13:44.)

By Robert Hargreaves

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