It was about three years ago when I first came across this expression ‘managing your distractions’ it was during my time as a teaching assistant at Forestdale Primary School and the context was for helping children who were easily distracted (by their peers, surroundings and other influences) to learn how to spot the distractions, and manage them, so that they didn’t loose focus on their work.

However, more recently I have been thinking about this with how distractions can keep up from walking in a Godly direction, or set us back from our vision and goals for our lives.

The first thing may appear obvious, but knowing what ‘is a distraction’ is key to being able to manage it, and deal with it accordingly.

So to identify my distractions I would ask myself a few questions.

Is this going to bring me closer to God?
Are my actions Godly ones?
Who will be blessed by my choices?
Does this fit with how I want to live and what I believe in?

Once I’ve worked out what is stopping me from staying on track that’s when I start to pray! I know that in my own strength it is likely that, things will continue just the same. So I start seeking God for wisdom and solutions and ideas for what I can do to change things.

Here’s an example (of the obvious…) if my distraction from going to my exercise class was tv or other evening social gatherings, I would ask God for his help in making the choice of which is best for me or if he would reveal another option that I could take.

What is God saying to you? What gets in the way of His plans for your life? Can you pray and seek God to help change things for the better?

Don’t let a temptation become a sin, keep yourself in check, stay close to God, through Jesus and His Spirit, looking always to living out His Kingdom on earth.

1 Corinthians 10
v13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.