I just got back from a mission trip to Mississippi with my youth group. We were able to minister to and with some great people down there. This was my second mission trip with our church teens. The first one was to Guatemala a few years ago. We had no contact with people back home. On this trip we allowed the kids to have their phones. The teens / adults did well with not being on them, except to take pictures, while we were working. When we were planning the trip, we talked about the reason for going and that we wanted our full attention to be on ministering and growing closer as a team. I so enjoyed being disconnected and truly enjoyed my time with the people of Mississippi and with our team. (It was a comfort though to have our phones to be able to call home and check in with our church family in the evenings).
While we were there, we did an illustration. One of the lady leaders was blindfolded and her husband had to give her clear directions to find her shoes in a huge pile of shoes. The object was to show that when there is silence and you know the voice, you will listen and it is easy to follow.
Then we put the shoes back into the middle of the room, the same leader put her blindfold on. This time we added a couple of other people. One portrayed God’s voice. The others portrayed the world and then Satan. This time it was a lot harder to hear and focus on God’s voice. The world and Satan were casting doubts and trying to get her to listen to their “wrong” advice. She had to really focus and listen to the person that portrayed God.
As I was on the sidelines watching this demonstration, I thought how easy it is to spend time with God and hear His voice while you are by yourself and away from the distractions of life. Yes, we were busy on the trip but it was a different kind of busy. I thought of the many distractions that come into my life during the day – work, family, church involvements, housework, television/news, Facebook …. Some of these distractions are not bad things, but are they things that should consume me? Are the people I am friends or associate with lifting me up or are they tearing me down?
In today’s world, so many people, young and old, are dealing with anxiety issues, being self-conscious and a number of other anxieties. It is easy to see why as we have turned our focus off from God and letting the world and Satan come into our thought life. When life gets busy and we feel stressed, we want to take control of our lives and we take our focus off from God. We let other voices dictate how we should feel and what we should do.
I saw a YouTube video (Listen to the Voice by David Gibbs-Temple Baptist Church) last week and again it made me evaluate. He said that he was supposed to fly on a big plane but a pastor, who was a pilot, convinced him and his friend to fly in a small aircraft for much cheaper. He prayed before the flight took off. Everything was going well. The pilot then tells them that he passes out when he is in the clouds – it has been cloudy all day. The pilot passes out and they are all by themselves having to fly this plane with no training. They get on the radio and they are connected to the air traffic controller, who tells them to listen only to his voice, don’t be distracted by the darkness and the storm going on around him; the controller will bring him home. He didn’t question the air traffic controller or wait and see what others thought but did exactly as he was told. The controller told him that soon he would see the runway and that it would look like a cross and to keep his eyes on the cross. He was able to land the plane because he listened to the voice.
We are often distracted by the storms of life. We want to control everything that is going on around us that we don’t put our focus of God. Satan is like a roaring lion and preys on our weaknesses. He uses these times to pull us away from looking to God. We are too busy looking at what is going on around us or listening to what others have to say that we should be doing, looking like, agreeing with, how we should spend our time – so that we are losing our focus.
God is telling us how we should live, what path we should be following but we are easily distracted by life, work, family and even church. What is our attitude when we are doing these activities? Are we keeping God at the center and letting Him use us as we do our job, interact with family life, minister in our community and at church? We need to keep our eyes and heart on God.
I am reminded of the song “Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face and the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.” I like the last part of the song; whatever is going on around us will grow small in comparison to God. I had an opportunity to go one evening with a couple of other leaders, walk down a path and look at the stars in the pitch darkness. What an amazing thing to just stand there and take in the glory of God and view His handiwork.
Life is not easy and doesn’t come with an owner’s manual, but God did give us His Word. He does give us directions on how to live a Christian life. We just need to stop, read His Word and listen to His voice.
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” – John 10:27-28
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