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.

Listen to conversations and you will soon discover that we commonly use phrases like “falling in and out of love,” referring to love with the false assumption that it is easy, implying that love is accidental or by chance.  This, of course, is false because love is hard.

The Bible addresses the topic of love (you have probably heard this read at weddings), defining it as:

“Love is patient, love is kind, it isn’t jealous, it doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints, it isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7, CEV)  

In essence, Love is hard.

Love, defined as this, sounds hard doesn’t it?  It is!!!  Love, by definition, is an act that denies one’s self for the sake of the other with NOTHING in return.  Have you ever been loved this way?  Was it easy for the person who loved you?  Have you ever loved this way?  What it easy for you?  Love is hard.

This is part of the reason about half of marriages end in divorce, why people have affairs, why people don’t seek help when their marriages are in trouble, why couple’s stop talking to each other, etc.  People falsely assume love should be easy when, in fact, love is hard.

By acknowledging that love is hard, you will begin to acknowledge that to love the way the Bible describes is both admirably desirable and overwhelmingly difficult.  You are right – it is.  Along with the definition of what love is, the Bible also includes the promise that if we ask God for help, he will answer.   After humbly admitting you need to help to love, you need to experience God’s love.  By experiencing this you will know what love looks like and will be able to love others.  God wants a relationship with you through Christ that is defined by the kind of love God describes.  God wants you to humbly ask him for help and he promises to answer.  You need help because love is hard.

As Valentine’s Day approaches, may it not be simply a day for swapping cards and chocolate that would amount to assuming love is easy.  Instead, may it also be a day where you and your valentine acknowledge that love is hard, ask God for help and commit to learn to love each other as the Bible describes.  May you recognize that, while love is hard, love is also absolutely worth it!

You have probably seen the sign at different locations (zoos, national parks, etc.) that emphatically states: “Don’t feed the animals!”  If you feed the animals, it is not good for their diet and they will keep coming back for more.

This same warning can be translated in our lives about worry.  We can get fixated on an issue, a problem, or a dilemma and it ruminates and grows in our minds.  Consequently, we incessantly think about, dissect it, replay it, and rethink it.  This is the phenomenon we refer to as “worry.”

This is an issue that many people struggle with and an affliction that many people suffer from.  Worry is like a wild animal, it will eat your joy, happiness, attention, positive outlooks, etc. and will leave you empty and sick, evidenced through bitterness, impatience, selfishness, lack of appetite, ulcers, etc.   In short, worry will eat your joy and keep coming back for more.

This problem stems from our natural inclination to think, reflect, meditate and focus on things.  It other words, we are designed to fixate and focus on something.  Worry is, in fact, evidence of this truth.  It is the result of our fixation going off course and being misdirected.  We have been designed to fixate our lives on something and this something is God.  When this occurs, it is evidenced in purposed thanksgiving and humility.  The problem is, we like to focus on ourselves, our problems, etc. and so the natural inclination of our hearts becomes repositioned away from God and onto the unhealthy focus of our selves, our problems, our dilemmas and our circumstances.  This repositioning inevitably manifests itself as worry.

This common problem is addressed in the Bible and the Bible actually gives a treatment for our misaligned human hearts, evidenced in worry.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)  

We are instructed in everything, by prayer and with thanksgiving, to keep the object of our focus on God.  There are two key elements to this instruction.

First, we are called to pray.  In other words, to intentionally focus on God, ask for his help and seek his guidance; in other words, to get the focus off of us and onto God.  In my experience, most people who struggle with worry also struggle with prayer.  Worry and prayer are often at odds because they have different focuses.  Just as you can’t face North and South at the same time, you can’t have your heart focused on you (evidenced in worry) and on God (evidenced in prayer and thankfulness) simultaneously.

Second, we are called to be thankful.  If you struggle with worry, the Scriptures tell us to make a disciplined attempt to be thankful.  One way you can do this is by writing a list of everything you are thankful for, reading the list daily and adding to it regularly.  It won’t solve your problems, but it will put them in perspective.  The Bible teaches that prayer and thankfulness work to reposition our hearts, resulting in the treatment of the disease of selfishness, manifested as the symptom of worry.

The Bible says that the result of this repositioning is peace, contentment and joy.  How does that sound?  Are you experiencing this or are you so busy feeding the wild animal of worry that it has starved you from peace, contentment and joy?

Where is your focus and how is it manifesting itself in your life today?

Worry is like a wild animal.  If you feed it, it will just keep coming back for more.

Remember: “Don’t feed the animals!”