When God wants you to sacrifice, he will tell you. Until then, he wants your obedience, he wants your submission, and he wants to be first on your urgent list.
Your purpose is way too important to be distracted by everyday life. You were created to change the world, not to be changed by your world.
In chapter one, I told you my story about distraction. James was purposed to be in full-time ministry, but I didn’t want him to serve in that role. All my attention and focus were on his place of employment rather than his purpose. If I’m being completely honest with myself and you, I didn’t truly care about his purpose or the impact he would make; I was more concerned about the impact it would have on my life. I truly believed that agreeing with James to go into full-time ministry and be employed by a church was a sacrifice, but I would tell myself it was for the greater good, for James’ happiness, and for God. In reality, I wasn’t sacrificing anything, and I was dishonoring God.
I willingly bowed down to distraction. If God was trying to speak to me, I didn’t hear it; if he was trying to guide me, I never saw it; and if he was trying to correct me, I never realized it. The enemy had me right where he wanted me—silenced by distraction.
One summer after James starting working at the church, the kids and I took a trip with my parents to see my brother, who lived in a different state. While we were there, we attended church. I don’t remember the church’s name or the pastor’s name, but I do remember the story he told.
One evening, he and his wife were sitting in the living room together. He was reading, and she was sewing a set of curtains for her clients—she was an interior designer and loved her work. She was about three-quarters of the way finished with the curtains when she realized she had made a mistake, so she carefully started taking the seams out one at a time, by hand. The pastor said he began to feel frustrated for her while she sat there calmly fixing her mistake. God spoke to him at that moment and said, “Don’t get frustrated for her, she is using the gifts and talents I gave her. You are watching her live out her purpose.”
God used that story to speak to me, and at that moment, I knew I had been selfish. All this time, I wasn’t just distracted, I was distracting. James was living out his purpose in front of my eyes, but I couldn’t see it. James had pushed past my attempt at distracting him and was obedient to God, in spite of my best efforts to stop him.
If James had given into my distraction, he would have missed out on the last 17 years of full-time service to God. He would have missed out on stepping into his purpose. The thousands and thousands of people who have been impacted by his obedience would have missed out. When I look back, I am ashamed of my actions and repentant for my disobedience and my attempts at distracting James from his purpose.
From then on, I have never missed an opportunity to watch James live out his purpose.
To change the world for Jesus, we have to be neither distracted nor distracting. We can’t discourage each other or step in each other’s way. We have to be unified in one thing—obedience to God. If we are united in this one thing, we will not distract each other—instead we will inspire, encourage, motivate, and spur each other on.
“Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.”
Ecclesiastes 4:9 NLT
