MAY 27

Focus: Distraction

Isaiah 26:3-4 (KJV) Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever: for the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength.

Distraction is the cause of many mistakes. When your mind is somewhere else, it’s easy to forget to do the simplest things. Distraction is common when you’re depressed or dependent. It doesn’t seem to matter how hard you try to stay in the moment—your mind just wanders. Realizing you’ve forgotten to do something important makes you feel worse than ever, so your feelings of self-worth sink even further. Often, you feel ashamed and remorseful when something slipped your mind. Sometimes you can fix your mistake—and sometimes you can’t.

Another one of the results of distraction is making a decision to do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do. In both depression and dependency, you are doing a lot of ‘time traveling’. Living in the past one moment—and in the future the next. No wonder it’s so typical to not be in the ‘now’ and no wonder you make mistakes when your mind isn’t on what you’re doing. Really simple things can escape you—even when you’re trying to do things right.

Having too many things on your mind is a typical cause of distraction. When you’re depressed or dependent, more than one thing can be ‘too many’. While you’re trying to do one thing right—you’re thinking about another thing you also need to be working on—and before you know it, you’ve made a mistake on the thing you were doing.

When you’re feeling low, you might be struck with an impulse to try to make yourself ‘feel better’. A ‘feel better’ thought, like taking a drink, using a drug, over-eating, compulsive shopping, and so on, may suddenly come into your mind—taking it away from reason and sanity. Before you know it, you’ve done something you had decided not to do anymore. The reason you did it was because you allowed your mind to be distracted by imagining how that ‘wrong thing’ would make you feel better. But the feeling didn’t last, and then the mistake you made caused you to be stuck with more consequences—all because you allowed yourself to be distracted.

Letting your mind get carried away is the cause of most of the problems you have. Daydreaming and time traveling are such culprits of stealing the time you should be spending in reality. It’s almost impossible to do things right in reality—when you just ‘aren’t there’.

Let’s face it. Making mistakes causes a lot of problems. It causes problems for you, your family, your friends, your employer…everyone. It’s important that you get a handle on distraction so you can stop having to deal with all the problems caused by your mistakes.

How can you stop making mistakes when you can’t get your mind to focus? The best advice I can give you on developing your ability to focus, is to keep your mind on God and trust Him for the help you need. Isaiah 26:3-4 (KJV) says, Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in Thee. Trust ye in the Lord forever: for the Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength.

I don’t think it’s enough to ‘wish’ we could stop something. Wishing won’t change anything. Finding the ability to trust God completely is the only way we can stop being depressed and addicted. All of the things we suffer from can be traced to the simple fact that we don’t—or won’t trust God. The problem we have with distraction is a lack of trust. True trust in God results in perfect peace—not distraction.

A person with perfect peace is able to focus on what is right. When our mind is in complete agreement with the mind of Christ—we will want to do what is right. Going down a wrong path would be out of the question if our mind was focused on the Lord and our trust was in Him.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not on thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths. What makes us daydream and time travel, is choosing to lean on our own understanding and not acknowledging Him. If we could walk in true communion with the Lord and live more in His presence—trusting Him to help us do things right—He would not allow us to make so many mistakes. If we would check with Him about every little thing, He would let us know that what we were about to do was wrong.

It all boils down to choosing His way instead of ours, doesn’t it? What could be better than having the peace of God? If distraction is our weakness—we need to be made strong in the area of our weakness. The Lord JEHOVAH is everlasting strength and nothing is too hard for Him. There is no weakness in us that He is unable to make strong.

Declaration: I will find new strength by trusting the Lord JEHOVAH who is everlasting strength. I will find perfect peace by keeping my mind focused on Him. As I live in perfect peace, distraction will not cause me to make mistakes.

All NEW STRENGTH posts are Copyright by Christina Cook Lee as of the date they were written and posted. Please request permission to re-post or re-blog. This material will be published as a book at the end of 2012, by the grace of God.

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