DISTRACTIONS IN WORSHIP - PART 3

How would you feel? You did something really nice, special and personal for someone. To express to you their appreciation for your kindness, they asked to take you out for dinner. After arriving at the restaurant, the both of you sit down, order your meals and begin drinking your beverages as you fellowship with each other.

Shortly thereafter, an old friend of theirs enters the restaurant. As you are responding to a question they just asked, they abruptly get up and go over to the table of their old friend and begin a conversation. You notice them laughing and talking as they reminisce their time together from the past. You are a bit surprised when you observe the waitress serve a beverage to them at that table and think to yourself how long the person plans to sit there and talk with their old friend while you sit and wait.

As you continue to sit at you table, by yourself, you watch the person’s beverage that was ordered at your table water down to mere colored water. You look over to the table at which the person is now sitting and engaged in stimulating conversation and delightful fellowship and almost fall out of your chair as the waitress brings entrées to the table for both the person’s old friend and the person who was supposed to be eating dinner with you.

You can’t speak… You can’t think… you need a drink of water… Your eyes begin cross as you think to yourself, “I don’t believe it! How dare they do that to me!” You ask your waitress to box up your meal and bring you your check because you need to leave. As you walk to the door, you hear the person and their friend laughing. As you exit, feeling embarrassed, rejected and dejected, you look over your shoulder, and see them thoroughly enjoying each other’s company. You leave thinking to yourself, “Well, I guess that is who that they really desire to be with.”

How do you think God feels? We come to worship service saying that we are here to spend time with God in the presence of God. Indeed, we begin to fellowship with God as we feel His presence with us and peace within us. As God is speaking to us and answering a question that we have asked, we abruptly shift our attention away from God to a distraction – a text comes in, a social media update, someone passes a note, someone is talking, someone’s hairstyle is unusual, someone’s clothes do not fit, “What will I eat for dinner?” “What do I need for work on tomorrow?” Distraction, distraction, distraction.

As the devil laughs at God, God looks over His shoulder feeling embarrassed, rejected and dejected, and see us thoroughly enjoying the company of the distraction. God then thinks to Himself, “Well, I guess that is what they really desire to spend their time with.”

Have you calculated how many hours per day and per week you spend with God versus how many hours per day and per week that you spend with technology? Remember, God said Do not make them, Do not bow before them, Do not serve them.