How was your 2021? Did you excel in your job? Did you make good grades in school? Were you able to spend more time with your family? Were you able to eliminate a lot of stress present in your life?

What about your spiritual progress? Did you complete the Wisdom Literature Bible reading? Did you pray more? Were you able to draw closer to your brethren? Were you able to execute the applications from the “Rising Above” sermons for the year?

If not, why not? Was it because you got distracted? You wanted to accomplish all of those things, but due to the various things you had going on in your life, you failed to keep focus. How can we overcome distractions that will come our way in 2022?

Prioritize

  • Martha was distracted by much serving when Jesus was in her home (Luke 10:38-42). Mary was different. She devoted herself to sitting at the feet of Jesus and listening to Him teach.
  • The Lord didn’t have a problem with Martha desiring to serve her guests, but she went too far. Her desire for everything to be just right blinded her to the opportunity she had to listen to Jesus!
  • The spiritual food that Jesus offered was much more important than the physical food that Martha was preparing.
  • We must avoid putting the earthly things that so easily distract us on the same level of importance as the things of God (Matthew 6:33; Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).

Plan

  • Before he began rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah examined the current situation and developed a plan (Nehemiah 3:11-14).
  • We may need to get up a little early for quiet moments to read our Bibles and pray.
  • We may need to designate a portion of our lunch break to Bible reading.
  • We may need to cut some things out of our lives to have Friday nights open to spend time with our family or have other Christians in our home.

Stop Procrastinating

  • Martha may have put off listening to Jesus because she thought there would be other opportunities to do so in the future. The Lord doesn’t commend her for putting the chance to sit at his feet off (Luke 10:41-42). Martha being distracted with much serving was causing her to miss out on the opportunity in front of her.
  • So often, distractions cause us to miss out on our service opportunities. They cause us to miss out on the opportunity to invite, encourage, study with our spouse, forgive, repent, and be baptized. Procrastination in the service of God is never a good thing (2 Corinthians 6:2).
  • Since tomorrow is not guaranteed (James 4:13-17), we need to seize the moments today!

Avoid Worrying About What People Say

  • Martha criticized Mary for putting Jesus first (Luke 10:40). Jesus commended her.
  • Others may mock, ridicule, and become irritated whenever we make spiritual things the top priority in our lives. But pleasing Jesus is all that should matter to us.

Conclusion:

May God bless us to “rise above” the things that distract us from focusing on what truly matters.