Loosing Focus

"But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ." 2 Corinthians 11:3 

The other day I came across this verse and it  made me stop in my tracks. How easy is it to loose our focus in our walk with Christ? I don't know about you but for me it does not seem to take much. I went back to Genesis to read the story again of Eve being distracted in her walk with God by the serpent and the Tree of Knowledge...

"Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." Genesis 3:1-7

Up until this point sin had not entered the human world, because humans did not know about sin and had yet to disobey God. Humans had everything they could have possibly needed. Based on the Bible we see they got to directly interact with God, God was with them. It took ONE conversation for Eve to be distracted from her walk and her purpose with God. She was derailed by the temptation of a tree and a serpent. 

If that is all it took for Eve how much easier is it for you and I to loose our focus? 

It makes me stop and think, what is my serpent? What is my tree? What causes me to be led astray from my purpose? What derails my attention from the Rock that is higher than I? Do not get me wrong here I am all about owning my own actions. People and circumstances are beyond my control but my decision I make in how I respond to them is in my control. 

What I am talking about here is what is tempting me and you away from our focus on God?

Here are a few things that may be causing you to loose focus on God

1) Sometimes it's a heart issue. 

What does it mean to you to follow Christ? 

A few months ago I felt compelled to ask myself, "Is there anything in my life that I hold back from God?" Is there somewhere in your heart that you've given all else to God but those one or two things are just off limits for you and you can handle them yourself or you believe that has nothing to do with God? God desires all of us, not just part of us. Keeping God from parts of your life is like picking and choosing which of His commands you are going to follow. It just was not meant to work like that. These things that we want to hold back and "handle ourselves", that we feel are "not important enough to worry God", or that "God does not care about that" these are things that stay in our hearts and distract us from a life all in for God. 

2) Being too busy.

Are you letting the busyness of life dictate the strength of your relationship with Christ? 

Now this one is one that tends to be a distraction for me personally. My Grandma has always told "You're not happy unless you are busy." and boy is it true.

Our culture has taught us that faster is better with fast food, instant communication, faster internet, fast cars, or even fast movie franchises built around a need for speed. Kirk Jones' book Addicted to Hurry decided to challenge this need for speed philosophy and brings it back to how God would want us to live. Jones addressed what the speed of Jesus' life would have looked like, which is something I had yet to stop and consider for myself. I have heard often and read in the Bible about how we are supposed to strive to be Christ like, to imitate Jesus, and in how we are supposed to do that, "Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did," 1 John 2:6. The way Jesus lived His live was leisurely He took time to pray, teach, rest, eat, and fellowship. Peter Scazzero stated in his book The Emotionally Healthy Church: A Strategy for Discipleship that Actually Changes Lives, "Cultivating an intentional life with our Lord Jesus requires intentionally focused time for silence, prayer, meditation on Scripture, and reading. But we are surrounded by endless distractions and voices that call us away from sitting at the feet of Jesus." I have never heard or thought about this side of who Jesus was. For me this was an important revelation to have, that Jesus was not someone to rush and if I desire to be like Him it will be something I will need to learn to do as well. The trap of being addicted to hurry creates a problem with our spiritual life and making sure that we have that time with God that is needed. When we are constantly running a race in life it makes it difficult to slow down even when it comes to giving God the necessary time to have a healthy spirit. 

3) Idols

We live in a culture that is all about self; ipads, iphones, ipods, selfies, the philosophy of "Do what makes you feel happy/good", the more followers you have on social media the better, and truly this list could go on for a while. 

There are many idols waiting to tempt us in today's society; money, food, TV, jewelry, cars, etc. I think this is one that is distractor that at first sneaks in on our attention, but can quickly and easily grab hold if we are not careful with it. 

"For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in Heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ." Philippians 3: 18-20

It is easy to fall into the trap of being distracted by earthly things, but we must remember that our citizenship is in Heaven. Our time here is temporary. Don't let the idols in this world cause you to loose focus on where your end goal is in running this race. 

Once again I must ask, What is your Tree that is keeping you away from a life focused on Christ? What is your serpent pulling your heart away from God? To help us keep focus sometimes all it takes is a wake up call and we are able to get back on the right track. Other times it takes us giving up something or at times someone in our life that is pulling away our focus.