We live lives full of distractions.  Our lives are now so crowded with distraction that we need laws to prohibit our overuse and abuse of those distractions (the distracted driving law is a great example of this).  Think for a moment about your day and the myriad of distractions that routinely flood your life: email notifications, phone calls, Facebook/Twitter updates, TV, movies, etc.  Our lives are now bursting with distractions.  Interestingly, Piers Steel has recently written a book that argues the distractions in our lives are costing us vital productivity and efficiency.  Whether or not this is true, it is analogous to our lives when it comes to getting distracted away from areas of even greater concern and of utmost importance.

Life is filled with tough circumstances, questions about meaning and purpose, as well as issues of eternal significance.  These are important questions that have been reflected on since the emergence of humanity.  These are questions that Google or iPhone’s Siri can’t answer (interestingly, if you ask Siri “What is the meaning of life?  She responds with a variety of different and funny answers such as: “I don’t know. But I think there’s an app for that.”)   These questions are important and no mobile device application, search engine, tweet, or status update can fully answer them.  The fact is, most people would rather be distracted than seriously reflect and wrestle with questions of eternal significance.

As we approach Easter, this is the ideal time to deal with our obsession with, and reliance on, distracted living.  In fact, Christian churches everywhere practice the season of Lent (40 days before Easter) in preparation for the Easter season (the season of remembrance of Christ’s death and resurrection).  One common practice for Lent is to give something up for a month, to purposely focus on Christ and our need for Him preparing our hearts for the Easter Season.  This practice, among other things, is about purposely removing distractions from our lives so we can focus on issues of eternal significance.  It is about reflecting on the birth, life, death and resurrection of our Savior and what faith in Christ Jesus means for our salvation.

As we approach Easter, think about your life and how many distractions you have embraced.  Consider for a time/a season, some questions of eternal significance, those question we, too often, ignore.  Think about the purpose for life, your belief in God, your understanding of the afterlife and consider experiencing the Easter story at one of the Christian churches in Vermilion this Easter season.  Experience the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and what it can mean, through faith, to have new life in Christ that is both abundant and eternal.  Come and look deep into life’s big questions, purposely pressing ‘pause’ on life’s distractions.