Faith in the Midst of Distraction

September 9, 2026

Many years ago, while on a mission trip with Kids Alive in Pucallpa, Peru, I wrote in my journal:

I am amazed at the missionaries’ faith and envious of their lives.  They have nothing I have at home, but they have much peace...purpose...less distractions.  I haven’t seen a television, not worried about the next item to purchase or vacation to plan.  The missionaries are not fighting over trivialities but are focused on two things: Christ and the Mission.  This drives them and gives them strength rather than stealing strength away, causing distraction.  It is unlike the churches I have served in America where infighting, self-centeredness, and doctrinal differences distract us from our mission.  So often we sit and fight as people drown.  Here the focus is on rescuing the drowning from the dirt sea and ocean of poverty and hopelessness.  There is nothing else.

If I were to describe the missionaries’ purpose, it would be with these words:

…it was simply to love on kids, teach them about Jesus, feed and clothe and hold…to be the hands and feet of Christ…

As I have reflected on those words and on my experience so many years ago, I keep coming back to one word: distraction.

In my experience, there are far more distractions here—in our country and in our culture—than there were in Peru. How often do I become distracted from God? From my purpose? From what is most important?

In Peru, there was little to distract us from the reason we were there.

We live in a culture of distraction. 

As Henry David Thoreau wrote, over a century ago, "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things." 

David Ulin, in his book, The Lost Art of Reading – Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time, writes about how all his life he had taken reading as for granted as eating. A few years ago something changed. He "became aware, in an apartment full of books, that I could no longer find within myself the quiet necessary to read." He would sit down to read at night, as he always had, and read a few paragraphs, then find his mind was wandering, imploring him to check his email, or Twitter, or Facebook. "What I'm struggling with," he writes, "is the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there's something out there that merits my attention."

That distraction—the feeling that there is always something “out there” that merits our attention—keeps us from sitting quietly and focusing on the book in front of us. Furthermore, it pulls our thoughts away from God, breaks apart our prayers, disrupts our focus, and punches holes in our ability to accomplish the purposes God has given us.

Tim Challies, in his book, The Next Story, write:

It is increasingly difficult to remain undistracted, when every new technology seems to evolve toward greater distraction.

Technology, media, magazines, gossip, sporting events, hobbies, work, church, relationships, consumerism, money, social media—the list is endless.

None of these things is necessarily evil. That may be what makes distraction so dangerous. Distraction does not always come in the form of something bad. Sometimes it comes through something good that simply becomes more important than the best thing.

Good things can become distractions when they pull us away from the One who calls us closer. This is why Paul exclaims in Philippians to “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable.” 

The Message translation puts it this way: “...you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.” 

In other words, stay focused on the things of God. We must refuse to be distracted. We must turn off the television. We must put away our cell phones. We must take our focus off ourselves and gaze upward.

Oswald Chambers, in My Utmost for His Highest, explains:

It is extraordinary what an enormous power there is in simple things to distract our attention from God. Refuse to be swamped with the cares of this life.

We must recognize and resist those things that pull us away from God—those things that infect our souls, shape our thinking, consume our time, and influence us in ways contrary to God’s Word.

Remember, scripture tells us, Proverbs 4:27 (The Message):

Keep your eyes straight ahead; ignore all sideshow distractions.  Watch your step, and the road will stretch out smooth before you.  Look neither right nor left; leave evil in the dust.

Hebrews 12:2 (NLT) - "We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith."

Throughout Scripture, we see men and women take their eyes off God and become distracted from His purposes and their mission.

For Jonah, his prejudice was a distraction.

For Pharaoh, his pride and quest for power blinded him to the God of Israel.

For the Israelites, the giants in the Promised Land became a distraction that caused them to forget the God who had parted the Red Sea and brought them through the wilderness.

For David, it was lust.

For Solomon, it was riches and the many things that competed for his heart.

For the younger son in Jesus’ parable, it was the world and its many enticements.

For the rich young ruler, it was simply money.

For Pilate, it was the crowd yelling, “Crucify Him!”—a crowd that distracted him from doing what he knew was right.

For Martha, it was the housework and preparations that had to be made.

And for Peter, it was the waves. He took his eyes off Jesus and placed them on the storm around him. The waves became more real to him than the One who had called him out of the boat.

How often do I get distracted?

As a pastor, husband, father, friend, and simply as a man trying to follow Christ, I often find myself like Martha—running around, trying to cross things off my “to-do list,” while missing the opportunity to sit at Jesus’ feet.

I immerse myself in the latest shows and find myself distracted for hours by fictional characters like Reacher, Ted Lasso, and William Murdoch. I find myself attached to my phone, scrolling through social media posts and reels for hours instead of working on the next book God has given me to write or reaching out to check in on a friend. I find myself sitting with worry about something I do not have control over.

Why did I envy the missionaries that summer?

Because many of the distractions seemed less powerful along the dirt roads of San Jose, outside Pucallpa, Peru.

While in Pucallpa, the mission, the need, and the hurts were so evident that it was difficult to focus on anything outside Christ’s command to love your neighbor. It was hard to give trivialities any importance when a child down the street was being abused, when a family was starving, or when children were sleeping on dirt floors.

Furthermore, there were no cell phones, no televisions, just a few board games, a soccer ball, and worship to bring us together.

How do we live our faith in a world of distraction?

In the classic novel, In His Steps, by Charles Sheldon, written in 1896, the story is told of Rev. Henry Maxwell. Rev. Maxwell encounters a homeless man who challenges him to take seriously the imitation of Christ.  As Paul writes in Ephesians 5:2 (The Message):

Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn't love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

The homeless man has difficulty understanding why, in his view, so many Christians ignore the poor.  He tells Rev. Maxwell:

I heard some people singing at a church prayer meeting the other night, All for Jesus, all for Jesus, All my being's ransomed powers, All my thoughts, and all my doings, All my days, and all my hours.' and I kept wondering as I sat on the steps outside just what they meant by it. It seems to me there's an awful lot of trouble in the world that somehow wouldn't exist if all the people who sing such songs went and lived them out. I suppose I don't understand. But what would Jesus do? Is that what you mean by following His steps?

That question—What would Jesus do?—becomes the central question of the novel.

Simply asking that question before a decision, a conversation, a task, or an opportunity changes and transforms not only the lives of the characters but the life of their community.

I believe those words still help us stand against the distractions of our day—the distractions that pull us away from our mission, our faith, and our God.

For me, however, I have changed the question.

Instead of repeatedly asking, “What would Jesus do?” I have developed a simple mantra that I try to say throughout the day:

You Lord, Not Me

These four words give me the strength to step back, breathe, and refocus. It reminds me to recommit myself to what matters.

We are fighting a battle every day against the endless stream of things demanding our time, our thoughts, our emotions, and our energy. A battle against the noise. A battle against the distractions that continually pull our eyes away from what matters most.

What I learned from the missionaries is that when the distractions are stripped away, we begin to notice what really matters. We have time for relationships, for watching the sunset over the Amazon River, for listening to the laughter of children, for worship, for marveling at the beauty of creation, and for simply being grateful for the gift of life itself. What seemed so ordinary became extraordinary when there was nothing competing for our attention.

Perhaps the answer is not that we need more time, but that we need fewer distractions. Perhaps we need to intentionally remove the things that keep us from seeing, hearing, and experiencing the things that matter most.

And when the world begins pulling us in a hundred different directions, we need to turn our eyes toward Jesus and remember what—and Who—deserves our attention.