I don’t know if you are like me, but it seems my life is full of potential distractions.  There are emails, advertisements, social networks, and countless other things screaming “Spend time with me!”  Charles Garfield once wrote a book called Peak Performers.  In it he wrote about his study of peak performers and he found that among their common characteristics was the ability to remain balanced.  They kept their lives in balance between professional and personal, vocations and hobbies. 

Distraction is a chief enemy of the Christian.  If we are not careful, we will allow distractions to deter us from the very object of our salvation, which is Jesus Christ.  How do you know if something is a distraction?  

Therefore…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.  Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith… Hebrews 12:1-2

 A distraction can be anything that keeps us from keeping God #1 in our lives and living out our life purpose.  God called each of us and gifted us for a divine appointment that will lead to fulfillment and inner peace.  The enemy will do everything in his power to provide another option.  The bottom line is: it’s not worth the trade-off. 

 Pray for discernment this week to determine what things may be distracting you from being as effective and fruitful as God intends for you to be.  Then ask for the courage to do something about it.

You can’t read the story of Jesus from the Gospels without seeing that He knew where He was going.  Let me ask you a question, “Do you know where you’re going?”  I’m not just talking about when you die.  I’m talking about while you live.  There’s something worse than death and that’s being dead while you’re alive.   Each day we have a choice to live that day on purpose.

I used to love to play pinball machines when I was a kid, and the more complicated the better.  Especially exciting were the ones that kept the ball in a slot for a few seconds while racking up points.  How many people live like a pinball?  They just go wherever life takes them and even hope for slot where they can sit and still rack up points. 

Here’s the reality: life is going by faster than you think and there’s not a day to waste sitting in some slot like a pinball, or to bounce aimlessly off of one situation to the next.  Instead, determine that every day is a day of destiny.  That God has put purpose and meaning behind every hour of every day.  Choose to grasp it, pull it toward you, and wring every drop of destiny out of it.  Living a life of purpose beats living like a pinball any day – it’s what you were designed to be!