Do you ever feel that you can’t focus on any one thing? Does busyness, anxiety, and worry “draw you away in differing directions”?
“Drawn away in differing directions.” This is the very definition used for the word “worries” in the parable of the sower. Instead of “and the worries of the world…enter in and choke the Word,” we could read it “and being drawn away in differing directions, enters into our minds and chokes out the Word we have put there” (Mark 4:19).
This is no surprise. From the beginning, the evil one has purposed to unsettle thoughts so that all heavenly resources lie unrealized. His object is to keep our minds and emotions distracted away from truth.
I know the feeling. Some days, my thoughts buzz like a restless bee from one diversion to the next. Unsettled and uneasy, I am seduced into thinking my spinning thoughts are natural and reasonable. After all, I’m not alighting on that which is blatantly evil.
The evil one whispers that I have no choice. This frantic and feverish pace is my lot in life. But “what does it profit (me) to gain the whole world, and forfeit (my) soul” (Mark 8:36)? When I excuse my distracted lifestyle, I too have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Romans 1:25), for “whatever is not from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).
May it not be so.
Although the battle still rages against our souls, “(we) have been bought with a great price” (1 Corinthians 6:20). His Holy exchange is complete. “He made Him Who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Because His life is now ours, God’s peace stands ready to protect our hearts and minds with His holy military guard from all hostile invasion (Philippians 4:5-7).
The question remains: will we believe? Will we yield to the courage (Psalm 27:14)? Will we daily set our minds on the eternal rather than the distractive (Colossians 3:2)? Will we take “every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)? Which will it be: according to our faith or according to our doubt (Matthew 9:29)?
The choice is ours.