I have begun to observe that life’s distractions never come at once but little by little. Indulge in this journey with me briefly and let me explain. Between enjoying the blessings of marriage and our children combined with their activities, I took on extra shifts as the afternoon supervising athletic director because I want to grow as an administrator. The great news is we have hired a great new candidate. Unfortunately, the gentleman is on a sixty-day hold, so someone has to cover those shifts. My building principal is doing the primary athletic director duties during the day, and I am handling the site supervisor responsibilities starting after school. Not too bad; if you ask my son, Christiano, he will tell you I drive a golf cart around and watch the students play games. Throw this in with my doctoral program, being intentional with serving the Lord first and foremost and dedicating time to the ministry He has allowed us to serve; some days seem like there are not enough hours in it.
With these new responsibilities, it has been forever since I found where to fit time in to work out. I told my wife I was going to start getting up at 3:30 a.m. to get to my school by four and train before I started my day; on my first day with her nudging me, I made it there; I was all ready, hoodie on, warmed up, headphones in, ready to go and as I hit the play button to get into that mindset there was no sound in the headphones. It took me a second because I could hear noise faintly but not loud enough; I immediately thought there was something wrong with the headphones. Once I took the headphones out, I could hear the music from the phone nice and loud; the source of power was producing the music fine, so I went into the settings and looked at the Bluetooth, and sure enough, my Air Pods had disconnected, it had been so long since I had my Air Pods near their source of power they disconnected, it took one fast click and sure enough the sync button was in motion and reconnected, the music was loud and clear through the headphones.
What an overwhelming sense of feeling when I thought about the ramifications of when I get too far away from my source of power, Jesus Christ. These distractions that creep into my life all too often have my mind focused on all different areas, and if I am not intentionally focusing on the Lord when I attempt to hear from Him, I usually fail to hear. It’s like the Air Pods; the power source is not the issue, but the receivers cannot hear any sound because they are disconnected. When I allow the distractions of life, the busyness, to pull me, I fail to realize that I am even disconnected from the Lord until I go to Him and realize that I become out of sync with the Holy Spirit. Praise God that the Holy Spirit does not leave me; I can resync myself to the Lord; if I need to repent, I can repent and realign myself with the Lord and begin to hear clearly from Him again. If I need to hear His voice I open the Bible, the Lord is always willing to speak to me when I am willing to remain in Him.
John would remind us in the scriptures John 14: 4-8
Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you[a] will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
So I ask, can you hear the Lord nice and clear, or do you need to re-sync yourself up to Him?
Frank D.