Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things;
I’m not one to spend a great deal of time looking through video clips of people doing stupid things. In fact, I don’t really do that at all. But some of my friends do and they showed me a video which was a compilation of people walking into things while texting, I encourage you to watch it (you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYgTM1pPjKQ). This video is partly why I no longer text while walking, another reason is that doing so is just plain rude and besides, you miss a whole world around you when your eyes are focused on your electronic god. If I need to text while I’m walking, most of the time I step to the side and stand still until I finish my texts before moving ahead, though I’m sure there are times when I break this rule of mine.
Years ago I was traveling with some friends to a soccer game about two hours away from my house and, as normal people do, we were talking the whole way. I don’t remember what we were talking about but the conversation was evidently engrossing enough that before long we realized we had been in the car for about two hours. We waited for the next exit on the highway finding that we had driven far past the road we needed to take. Needless to say, we ended up arriving at the game a bit late.
This past year a very similar thing happened as I was driving with a friend. I was supposed to be giving directions but I had become engrossed in the conversation and made a quick decision regarding an intersection we wanted to take, a decision that ended up being wrong. About thirty minutes later we realized we had been driving in the opposite direction of our intended destination, making us about an hour late in arriving where we wanted to be.
There have also been times in classes and during sermons when, as the teacher or pastor spoke, my mind was distracted. I have often found myself thinking about the attractive people around me, what I did the day or night before, what I want to do the rest of that day or week, or many other things instead of focusing on the words being spoken. And by the time the speaker begins to wrap things up, I find that I have no clue what they have been talking about. The same thing happens to me when I read books, watch a movie, listen to music, or well…really anything else.
Other than the possibility of walking into oncoming traffic, most of these problems are not mortal issues. I might fall into a pool of water, drive a few extra miles, or miss a message I probably should have heard. But while these aren’t deadly, they do illustrate my capacity to be overtaken by distraction. Even now as I write this, I just took a five-minute break to do absolutely nothing. I mean, I ate a cracker, said hello to the dogs, and switched over a load of laundry, but I didn’t have to do any of those things. I could have stayed here and finished this post, and yet I didn’t. I got up, for no good reason, and disrupted my stream of thought, so now as I sit here trying to find my former words I find I can’t. I have found some words, obviously, but those which were so ready to go before my mind thought about the laundry are now lost, never to be recovered again. I suspect I’m not the only one who has these experiences, but my experiences are not limited to inane things.
I find myself often looking away from good things and focusing on worthless things. Sometimes I notice it right away and sometimes it takes a long time for me to realize what I have done. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to alert me to my distraction, but sometimes I have to fall into a pool of water or run into a glass window or nearly get run over by a bus before I realize the direction I have taken is the wrong one. The author of Psalm 119 seems to understand this as he pens his words in verses 33-40. He knows there is a path leading to life and he knows he wants to hold his feet to that path. But he also knows his heart is prone to wander and leave the God he loves. He knows he alone cannot keep his eyes on God and his feet on the Lord’s paths: he knows only God can do that for him.
In other words, he needs someone to take his cell phone from him. He needs someone to be vigilant about giving the right directions. He needs someone to jab him in the ribs when his mind wanders in a sermon or class. He needs someone to hit him in the face with the truly important things in life when he starts walking down the broad road that leads to destruction. In short, he needs, as we all do, the one who built the narrow gate and paved the righteous path to walk alongside of us keeping our eyes focused on the only thing in life with meaning: the ways of God, for in them is found life, both abundant and eternal, everything else is a life of distractions.
