October 2010

Imagine a runner at the starting line of a race, heart pumping with adrenaline, sweat beads cascading off his forehead as he leans forward, eyes focused on a spot on the other side of the finish line. He can almost taste the victory from there. He’s been waiting months for this race, his muscles tried and tested with rigorous training, vision clear, arms and legs brimming with anticipation. But as the officials prepare to signal the beginning of the race, and all the other runners begin to take their running stance, something really strange begins to happen, something that no one in the stadium could have expected. As the announcer says “on your mark” a cell phone the runner had place on his side begins to ring, "get set" the phone continues to ring, "go" and as all the other runners take off, he decides to answer the call and is left standing at the starting line.

You may think this is the strangest thing to happen that day but it gets even more peculiar. Realizing the race has already begun, the runner takes off, cell phone still in hand and tries to pick up some ground. But as he makes the first turn, someone suddenly runs over and hands him a briefcase. Still determined to pick up his pace he grabs the briefcase and continues to run. Around the second turn, he sees his dog walking on the track with a leash in his mouth, which in his haste to pick up some more ground on the other runners, the runner picks up and tucks the dog under his arm. As he makes his way to the third turn, a garbage bag appears on the track, which for some reason he decides to pick up and carry with him. Trying his best to keep the dog in place, while holding his briefcase, a trash bag and talking into his cell phone, the runner still has his eyes focused on a spot beyond the finishing line. Needless to say, all of the anticipation and all of the training were for nothing as the runner finishes in last place. When asked why he had such a hard time getting around the track, the runner was shocked to discover that no one had seen what had happened. Days later, when he was shown a tape of the race, he was in even more disbelief to discover that everything that happened was all in his head. All of the distractions were things he had on his to do list.

Can you imagine if we had to run a race with everything we had on our to do list in our hands or strapped to our backs? We would never win a race much less finish with a decent time. But more often than not, that’s exactly what we do on a regular basis, in the race track of our minds. Our thought life often leaves us feeling burdened with things that need to be completed. Often we mix in a bit of work, a bit of home, maybe even a bit of church, basically we do a little bit of whatever comes to mind. A research report released earlier this year stated that we are distracted for most of the hours we are awake. It pointed out that we spend most of the 24 hours in a day looking at a screen of some sorts. We move from our television screens in the morning to our cell phone screens, to our computer screens and back to our cell phone and television. Basically, we try to squeeze in as much as we can, whenever we can, in order to keep ourselves occupied. It's a phenomenon that we have so lovingly categorize as multi-tasking.

Most of us blame the technology while others cast the blame on their schedule. It’s not by accident that we often feel disconnected from our friends and family and function with a false sense of connection. When it comes to our quiet time with God we exhibit the same behavior and leave feeling empty and not understanding why we are not making a connection with God. We spend more time in working ministry than we do in prayer and in hearing and reading the Word of God. And when we do find the time to do these things, we are often doing something else simultaneously. We think we can multi-task but what we are really doing is multi-masking; we think we are in full control and able to focus on multiple things at the same time but truthfully we are only fooling ourselves. The reality of it all is we are unfocused and have lost the ability to connect with others, with our selves and mostly with God.

The fact of the matter is we don't finish things or finish them at the rate we should because of the many different distractions that come our way. We give everything a percentage of our time, never completing 100% percent of any task. Even when we are not physically doing many things at the same time we occupy our minds with such things and therefore distract ourselves from the task at hand. Scripture tells us to "strip off every weight that slows us down" and to "run with endurance the race God has set before us" (Hebrews 12:1, NLT). However, we overload ourselves with stimulants and have lost touch with the act of focusing on one thing at a time, thereby running an unsuccesful race.

It is October, where are you with the race you started in January? How close are you to accomplishing the many things you planned to do this year? Did you accomplish at least one thing? This month it is time to refocus yourself and take a page from the runner's handbook: A runner clears his or her mind before a race, during the race, making sure to focus only on the task at hand “to finish the race”. Distractions will come but how you handle those distractions will determine whether or not you not only finish the race but run a successful race.

Many Blessings,
Enzo & Michelle Surin

If you are looking for a more indepth devotional study, please check out A Different Kind of Love, a new eBook of devotionals for a purposeful 2010, available at enzosurin.org

Enzo S. Surin, Ministry Leader

Please let us know how this month's message spoke to you.