Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
(1Peter 5:8)
Do you know what the word “devour” in this scripture means in the Greek? It means to drown.
So we could reword this to say that the devil is looking for someone to drown. Not a pleasant image!
Have you ever felt as though you were drowning?
- Drowning in too much to do?
- Drowning in too much clutter?
- Drowning in too many relationships that are draining you of precious energy?
- Drowning in too many tasks that seem to never get done?
If so, this scripture tells us what to do.
- Be self-controlled
- Be alert.
- Resist the enemy
- Stand firm in your faith.
What does that mean?
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard from my clients and friends that they feel like their lives are like a zoo. Busy from sunup to sundown and never a minute to breathe.
My pastor, Brady Boyd*, New Life Church in Colorado Springs, wrote one of the best books about this subject of being addicted to busy!
Here are some random thoughts from his book, Addicted to Busy: Recovery for the Rushed Soul:
“Ultimately, every problem I see in every person I know is a problem of moving too fast for too long in too many aspects of life… It is distraction over devotion… Unless I commit myself to minding my mind, I defer to distraction every time. Busyness serves as a hedge against emptiness…People enroll their kids in everything under the sun, and as a result, they never have a day off.”
Busyness and distraction are a scheme of the devil and you must resist these, standing firm in your faith.
How can you do this?
- By choosing devotion over distraction.
- Reigning in on your compulsions to do, do, do and go, go, go.
- Spending quality time with the One who has made you for Him alone.
- Cut back, cut out, cut down, cut away.
- Anything that absorbs your mind and strength and time and energy that is not from Him is a scheme of the devil.
Choose you this day whom you will serve. Distraction or devotion?
Choose wisely.
*If you would like to follow my pastor on his blog, click here.