Distractions--Are They?

 

Recently, I was in a discussion about distractions. It didn't sit right with me, and I want to clarify my thoughts on the topic. First of all what are distractions?

A distraction is an action, line of thought, or path that diverts you from what you should be doing, thinking about, or pursuing at a given time.

That's actually a lot to unpack. 

First of all, nothing is inherently a distraction; e.g., that video game you're playing is a distraction only if you're using it to avoid what you know would be preferable to do at this moment. But if it's legitimately downtime for you right now, and your choice of activity for your brain's change of pace is a video game, the game doesn't meet the definition of a distraction.

Also, timing is important. If you're supposed to be logging in to work but instead you're catching up on the three weeks' worth of Wordles you've missed, the game is a distraction. If you're thinking about your novel, your grocery list, or the Little League game you're coaching at five o'clock, then those are distractions--right now, although they won't be when it's time for them.

Let's say something is a distraction right now. Is it always wrong to let the distraction take over? Distraction can be the mother of creativity, and we ought not forget that. Products as diverse as Coca-Cola and the microwave oven were developed because the inventors were distracted from their original projects. Sometimes you have to go down a rabbit trail awhile before you realize it's the trail you should be on. 

Ah, which brings us to that word. Should. Who decides what we should be doing right now, and whether other things are, therefore, distractions? 

The Holy Spirit living within us does. Right? Sometimes our goals are exactly that: our goals. That is, goals can be distractions. The thing God switches us to in lieu of our prior pursuits is the main thing; it is not the distraction. 

In the aforementioned discussion I was part of, games and other amusements were being equated with distraction in a rather absolute way. Perhaps we should be praying instead, it was suggested. And perhaps so. But here's another perhaps: Perhaps the accuser has come along to tempt you with a sense of false guilt for not performing a religious activity right now. Perhaps he's come along to lay on you another form of the American disease called Crazy Busy. We have been persuaded that we don't need and can't afford rest in its various forms, and therefore we should feel guilty taking it. Eschewing rest is sin, and I'll have more to say on this in future posts. 

But to begin with, at least, when faced with the word "distractions," we should stop and ask, "Are they? In this case and at this time? Are they really?" And then listen for the Holy Spirit's answer.