Have you ever found yourself getting distracted while you were praying? Or in a church service? Or maybe during what is supposed to be your alone time with the Lord? Yes? Well, you aren’t the only one. We have all been there. And that is definitely not a shortcoming on your part, so please don’t be burdened by guilt or shame. Recognize it for what it is: a trick of the enemy! In this post, I’ll talk about what distractions are, why they come when they do, and what we can do as Christians in response.
Listen to what the apostle Paul told the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 10:5:
Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
Now, he wouldn’t have said this if it didn’t matter. Ephesians 6 lets us know that this is a spiritual and a mental battle, not a fleshly one that we can see with out eyes. If we allow the enemy into our minds, he’s already halfway there! That is why we must wear the full armor. Distractions are things that divide your attention or prevent concentration. And that is why they can be very dangerous for believers. After all, we are in a fight, the biggest one anyone has to face, and having divided attention or losing focus on the battlefield has never done anyone any favors. That is true in the natural and in the spiritual.
Distractions are something we faced when we were in the world and they are something we will face as believers in the Most High God but, now that we believe, we have ways to come against them.
Why & When Distractions Come
Distractions come sometimes simply because life is busy and your mind is always working. You may have things to do tomorrow, you may not be meeting the goals you set for yourself (or that someone else set for you), and sometimes they come because you feel tired or anxious or in need of a break. Other times, however, they come because they are meant to hinder you. These are the types of distractions that I will focus on today. The distractions that do you no good and help you drift further and further from purpose inch by inch, so that before you know it, you can’t even see where you were in your walk with Christ.
The Bible lets us know that Satan is constantly seeking to devour us (1 Peter 5:8) and we shouldn’t just hand ourselves over to him on a silver platter. Scripture also talks to us about seducing spirits, and no this doesn’t mean lustful spirits, although it can be if that is something the enemy knows will work on you. These seducing spirits don’t enter in to you, but they linger around you, just waiting for the moment to pounce, waiting for you to feel weak, for a chink in the armor. And then, they whisper into your ear and cause you to stumble, possibly even fall.
Satan is our enemy and he doesn’t want us growing stronger in our walk with the Lord. He doesn’t want us interceding for others or drawing people into the Kingdom. Truth is, he hates us because he knows that the Father loves us. Satan hates us and so will use every opportunity to get us disconnected from the Father. Distractions serve as one of his tricks. As I mentioned earlier, so often you’ll be in church listening to the sermon and all of a sudden you’re wondering about the game, or what you’ll have for dinner. And you miss some nugget of truth that the Lord had just for that would have bolstered and encouraged you. Perhaps you’re praying for a friend or loved one, and then you think back to a memory about them and your mind drifts onto a tangent. Your prayer could have covered them in the next big test or issue in their life, and now it is not there. Can you understand how the enemy can benefit from that?
Distractions throw us off our game and they most often come right when we’re about to have a breakthrough or help someone else get to theirs. Distractions come most frequently in those moments we are trying to worship and serve the Father because flesh doesn’t want us living for the Father. Flesh doesn’t want us holy, it doesn’t want to please us. They come to shift your focus and almost always, your focus is shifted to something not necessarily bad (because then you may rebuke it and go back to the Scripture), but to something whimsical or something you’re curious about, or something you enjoy.
Has this ever happened to you?
These distractions have a purpose, but so do we!
Our Response To Distractions
So what do we do when distractions come?
Great question! Just like Paul told the Corinthians, we have to cast them down! We are in control of our thoughts, even though sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. Our thoughts govern our words and our actions and if we want to live holy and pleasing unto the Lord, we have to be good stewards of the minds He has given us!
How do we cast down distractions?
Another great question! Well, the first step is recognizing a distraction for what it is. If your mind begins to wander, check yourself. Say, “hold up, why am I thinking about this? This can wait?” More often than not, distractions are some random thing you probably wouldn’t be thinking about any other time. Tell yourself you can wait to make that to-do list until after your studying time. You don’t really need to go on to social media and see what your best friend from primary school is up to. None of that is nearly as important as spending time with the Lord and growing closer to Him.
After you have recognized a distraction, cast it down! Rebuke it. I’m not kidding. Tell that thought it has to leave. Then you make an intentional and concentrated effort to focus back on what you were doing. Sometimes, if I catch myself being distracted for a certain amount of time, I spend double that amount of time with the Lord. I challenge the enemy right to his face! If he wants to keep coming, he can do that, but all he’s going to do is draw me closer to the Father! Tell those distractions to get out, that they don’t matter. Saying it out loud actually does help, but I can understand if you start by whispering it (especially if you’re in a public place.)
You can even find a scripture that you repeat when these distractions come! Verses about meditating on the Lord and His Word or trusting in Him work great at rebuking the enemy and drawing your mind back in to what you were doing before the distraction came.
The good thing is that the more you do it, the quicker you’ll recognize when you’re being distracted or when your train of thought has jumped the tracks. Once you get into the habit, you can more quickly get back into the word and distractions begin to come less and less. However, that doesn’t mean it is all fine and dandy! Remember, we’re in spiritual warfare, we must be vigilant and alert, even when everything looks good.
As the Word tells us, we can’t give any place to the devil. We can’t give him a chink in the armor to go after (Ephesians 4:27).
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