Most of the distractions in my life are self-imposed, but they're distractions nonetheless.
When I've got something important going on - an imposing critical conversation, or a sermon, or an important meeting to prepare for - my phone rings more often, my inbox fills up more quickly, and facebook statuses are more interesting.
In Romans 8:13 Paul reminds us to "mortify the sin in our body." Recently, I'm learning the discipline of mortifying the distractions in my office.
When it comes time to do something important, I have to close down the inbox. I forbid myself from looking at facebook. I turn my cell phone on silent, and my office phone on "do not disturb." Facebook, cell phones, email, and blogs are amazing tools for connecting with people. But they can also cripple my ability to connect effectively over the long term with anyone.
Those things all have their place, but I have to stay disciplined to keep them there. Otherwise, they'll overtake my life like kudzu.
I have to mortify distractions. Otherwise, they'll suck me dry and kill my ministry.
1 comments:
I have a similar issue, though mine is will cell phone reviews (which I write for 2 different sites). They require focus, attention, and thought, and they're so easy to distract from.
One of the best things I've done is to get a netbook for writing reviews. I use the Asus 1000HE, which is about $400 from Amazon. It's a small little thing, about the size of a large paperback and super thin. It gets 6+ hours of battery life, which is awesome, and has a comfortable keyboard. I can take this thing to the couch, the coffee shop, or wherever. The benefit, though, is that the smaller screen and less powerful processor means that it handles writing reviews spectacularly, but there's simply not enough to also have Facebook, IM, Twitter, etc running at the same time.
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