Deut. 5-7
How do we keep our primary focus on God in a world full of distractions? I mean, we have to live, right? We have to eat and earn an income and take care of home and family and friends. Where does focus on God fit into all that distraction? God tells His people, who represent us, “…take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of….slavery.” It is God we are to fear, to serve, to swear by – none other. Any of these other distractions, even seemingly good things like friends or family, can take the place of God in our lives if we let them. We are not to let them.
How are we to do this? Deut. 6:4-9 gives some advice: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Not only do all of life’s distractions have potential to become gods to us, they have potential to cripple us with fear. God speaks to this in chapter 7, starting at vs 17. When we come up against challenges that are greater than we are, God says, “…you shall not be afraid of them but you shall remember what the LORD your God did…” (vs 18). This is another reason to keep God’s word in our hearts and minds as much as possible – because it reminds us of His greatness.
In addition to that, though, I think it would benefit us to make this concept more personal. We need to find a way to remember the things God has done in our own lives. While they may not be as fantastic as parting the Red Sea, or many of the other miracles we see throughout the Bible, they still show us the greatness and the goodness of our God. Maybe keep a journal of some kind (I stink at journaling). Or maybe get some kind of memento to remind you of the incident when God acted on your behalf. Or perhaps take or draw some pictures, or associate it with a song. Or just keep a simple, after-the-fact log of what you faced and how God handled it for you.
Just thinking, because life is busy and it is so hard to find time to “work God in.” Though I really think this is the wrong approach. I think, instead, we need to find ways to bring Him tangibly into every other thing that we do. It’s not enough to just say that God is always with us or in the back of our mind. We need Him top of mind in practical, acknowledgeable ways. How do we do that?
Luke 3
It struck me this morning what this quote from the book of Isaiah says – “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” What that says to me is that, through Jesus, God has removed every obstacle that stood between us and Him; that man can now approach God with a simple walk. Awesome. Also, the way John answers the people’s questions in the following verses – he is giving them the practical application of the Ten Commandments. I love that!