Distractions—good or bad—can get you off track. This is the nature of a distraction. It causes you to become double minded. You are unable to give full attention to the matter at hand, and thus you water down your effectiveness. It may be a personal or a professional distraction that currently has you preoccupied.

Personally, it may be a relationship that is sucking an inordinate amount of time and energy. Is it really worth it? The hours of “high maintenance” relational care may mean that it’s not meant to be. The attention to this individual has become laborious and highly intense. Without any relief in sight, it may be time to walk away for a season. Let it rest until there can be more normalcy to the relationship.

For example, a person’s drug, alcohol or sexual addiction needs professional attention. Your tolerance is only enabling their bad behavior. They are distracting you from being the parent or the spouse God intended you to be. Their destructive behavior requires tough love. Otherwise, you may lose everything in the process. Do not allow someone’s premeditated distraction to lead your family into destruction. It may be time for bold intervention.

On the other hand, you may be experiencing a professional distraction. The mission of your organization may be compromised because of your well-meaning activities outside the scope of your job description. Do an audit of your time and energy. Be honest with yourself. Either cease feeding your distractions by aligning your personal and professional missions, or choose to jeopardize the integrity and success of both initiatives.

Indeed, our worst outcome from distractions is the neglect of our time with our heavenly Father. He deserves our full attention and focus. If life has become too busy for God, then we are too busy. Nothing is important enough to distract us from having time with the Lord. It may even be that your service for God has become a distraction. Ironically, you cannot spend time with God, because you are serving God. This is a great deception.

Service for God, which substitutes activity for your time with God, is a distraction of the worst kind. You drift into a performance-based relationship with your heavenly Father, which is full of pressure and missed expectations. You are distracted by doing and have no margin for being. You are unable to know Him because you are too busy working for Him. It may be time to modify your doing so that you can take time for being.

Be loved by God. Be accepted by God. Be encouraged by God. Be led by God.

A distracted life is susceptible to imbalance. Remove those “good” distractions, and replace them with intimacy with God. He will make up for any lost time and accomplish even more in your absence. Distractions can divide us from our Maker. Therefore, defuse distractions before they arrive. Then you are in a position to be united with your Lord. By His grace, push back on distraction’s pull!