Stay Focused

Ecclesiastes 9:11-12

11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

12 For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

A train is a mighty moving force. They are powerful, productive, useful, and beneficial to those they serve. But for all their power and unstoppable moving force, they can be rendered totally useless in a moments time. Not by attacking the massive train itself, but by attacking the mechanism that keeps the train going in the direction it is programmed to travel. You can only stop the mighty train by derailing it. When a train is derailed, lives are lost and millions of dollars of inventory and equipment are destroyed.

This is exactly the danger we face as believers, that of being derailed, detracted, or distracted from the path that the Lord has set us upon. The Word says that the steps of the righteous are ordered of the Lord. If you are a righteous man or woman you are not where you are, doing what you doing by chance. If you are living obediently you are exactly where God wants you.

We don’t always see this, or believe this, or even receive this truth especially in times of struggle, but it is the truth none-the-less. You may not be where you want to be, you may not be where you dreamed that you’d be, or where some other well intending person told you that you would be, but if you are an obedient child of God, you’re exactly where He called you to be. Don’t let how you feel about your circumstances derail you from God’s plan.

The devil is very subtle and deceptive, we are warned to be sober and vigilant toward our adversary:

1 Peter 5:8 “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:”

And we are told to equip ourselves with the protection that we need against the devil’s attacks:

Ephesians 6:11 “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

Wiles are the cunning strategies employed in manipulating or persuading someone to do what one wants. Seldom does our enemy launch full scale frontal attacks against us. An obvious attack would be quickly recognized, causing us to see our own weakness and need, and would send us to our knees in prayer to seek God’s protection by calling on the mighty name of Jesus.

Instead the tactic of Satan is to use subtility, deception, and more often than not, simple distractions to derail us. Things that in themselves are not really wrong, but they are distractions that draw our attention, dull our focus, and weaken our unity with God’s purpose. Like the mighty locomotive, when you become derailed or distracted, you become powerless, you lose your momentum and eventually if it is not corrected you will crash.

Solomon 2:15, “It is the little foxes that spoil the vines.”

It is almost unbelievable, but the truth is in the times when we should be the most settled and the most established and set upon the things of God, is the times that we are the most vulnerable to sneak attacks from the devil. In I Co 10:12 the Apostle Paul warns us, “wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

Satan wants to break your stride, destroy your momentum, and side track you.  When your distracted you are divided, and when you become divided, you are disabled. The devil knows he can’t stop God, and he can’t change the purpose and the destiny that God has for your life, so his only hope is to get you distracted.

When our focus becomes divided or blurred, we lose supernatural energy, God can only empower us for what we are focused on. You cannot focus on multiple things, simultaneously. To focus means to draw the attention, to concentrate on. Distract means to draw someone’s attention away from, to draw apart, or to preoccupy. Distractions are things in your peripheral vision that are not in line with your calling and purpose and can detract you from focusing on the path that God has called you to walk.

These distractions are placed strategically by the devil with the knowledge that in order to clearly see them, we must sacrifice the clarity of our God given purpose. No one focuses on two directions at the same time – you can’t look two ways at once.

Aesop's fable of the “Tortoise and the Hare,” is a perfect analogy for what I am trying to convey.  The hare was a lean mean running machine. The tortoise was a short fat legged bulky creature with a heavy shell on his back. The tortoise was tired of hearing the hare bragging all the time so he finally said, even you can be beaten, so the challenge was on.

The whole forest showed up to watch the tortoise be humiliated by the long-legged hare. On your mark, get set, go! They’re off, like lightning the lean hare leaped into the lead. The hare ran ahead a way, then decided since he was so fast and tortoise so slow, he would take 40 winks, so he did. Then waking up he saw tortoise still way behind. Breathing a sigh of relief, the hare decided he might as well have breakfast too, and off he went to munch some cabbage he had noticed in a nearby field. A carrot here, some cabbage there, a nap here and 40 winks there – all of the sudden he wakes up to see tortoise nearing the finish line. The hare raced like a bolt of lightning, but it just wasn’t enough as the tortoise stretched out his neck and won the race by a nose.

Some would say that the tortoise won because he just kept plodding away, slow and easy. There is some truth in that theory, but what really gave the victory to the tortoise, was the hares over confidence and inability to disregard distractions. The hare had all the advantages, and he had all the strengths, and that was his downfall, the hare believed himself to be so strong enough and fast enough, that he could entertain distractions and still win the race.

That is the genius of using the tactic of distraction, the devil uses your strengths against you. The fact that you feel yourself strong enough to entertain distractions and still win the race – but you can’t. Those who focus, finish, but those who become distracted are derailed. The Apostle Paul warns against overconfidence in our own strength:

Romans 12:3 “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”

I Corinthians 10:12 “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

This folktale is usually viewed as though you are either the slow, steady, purposeful, and undistracted tortoise, or the fast, overconfident, undisciplined, and easily distracted hare. But I feel today that the Lord would have us understand this story in a different light. Like the Hare, we have all the advantages, we have been redeemed by the blood, we have the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost, we have the Word of God, and the name of Jesus. We have the power and the privilege of prayer. Because of these advantages, we should move through life in a very purposeful, disciplined, and focused manner like the tortoise.

Friends, let us realize that we have everything we need to fight the good fight of faith, to run the race marked before us, and win. But a truth just as real as this is, we will never finish the race victoriously if we allow ourselves to become distracted. It is imperative that we maintain our focus and press toward the mark. It is not impossible for us, for many have already accomplished what we strive for and are examples, witnesses for us to see and follow:

Hebrews 12:1, 2

12 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight (distraction), and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;

Satan’s goal is to distract and derail us from God’s purpose, and to rob you of the crown that God has laid up for you. But the Lord desires that we focus and finish.

Philippians 3:13-19 (emphasis added)

13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. 16 Never-the-less, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. 17 Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. 18 For many walk (but they became distracted), of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19 Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.