Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Just Do It!

Distractions are some of our greatest enemies. They do not confront us with malice frontally, their blows, if they land at all, are only glancing. They don’t have to be dangerous or even lethal-- a butterfly on the windshield wiper can be just as distracting to our drive as a bee in the car. Like the old saw which says that a man may be the head of the family, but the wife is the neck, so distractions seek to turn our attention from where we were going.

The Bible warns us about distractions. Most of them are not intrinsically evil, some of them are. A family will be a distraction, it's unavoidable, and not evil in the least (quite the opposite in fact). An unrelenting drive for "success" and status is distracting from our point in being here, and is evil at the core. Either can stop ministry in its tracks.

Multiple choice exams, in order to add a degree of difficulty, often instruct their takers to choose, not the answer, but the best answer. A response can be wrong, not because it isn't true, but because it isn't full. When tolerances are high, quality control is a cinch: when we're looking for the best, we have to be more discerning. How much of what we teach and practice in the church settles for the ballpark, and misses being in the game? The church at Ephesus certainly has some lessons to teach us in this regard.

Even the litany of discussions about the church, seems somewhat distracting to me. So many are writing and reading about what has already been said. Mention something to a brother or sister today and you're likely to hear, "have you read so and so's book/article/blog about ..." So much information, so many concerns, too many choices, urgencies everywhere, the flesh in the midst of it all, excuses overflowing, maybe it's time to just do it!