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A Journey full of distractions

The last few days have been full of distractions.  I’m sure you have faced days filled with distractions that are designed to take your attention away from what the purpose of God is for your day and your life.  Days can turn into weeks and before you realize it you are more focused on the distractions of life than the purpose of life. 

I find myself with the distraction of a weak body, a somewhat fragmented soul, but a strong spirit. The weak body and the fragmented soul are the distractions that war against the spirit.  The warfare is over the purpose designed by our Lord for my life.  The roadmap God has given me to follow seems difficult.  The truth, however, is that His plan is the lightest and easiest of any plan I could come up with.  The plan is found in praise.  

Psallm 107:8 “Oh, that men would praise the Lord”, is used four times surrounded by a context that places us in a unique situation.  It’s in this context that we find the power of praise in ways that become manifested in our warfare of distractions that we face. 

The first time the phrase is used, “Oh that men would praise the Lord” is in verse 8.  Therefore, we need to consider what is said in the first 7 verses, which explains how the power of praise is manifested.  The principle of the first 7 verses is that the redeemed of the Lord have been gathered from all over the world. In verse three we gathered from the east, west, north, and south. This world system or the function of the cultural society is what we are being delivered from.  According to verse 4, this world system and the cultural society isolates us into a solitary place.  All the implications of the word solitary are what is offered to us by the world system.  It seems ironic to me that the political and cultural systems cry out for unity but every policy creates more division and more isolation.  The real question is what do we do about it?

This passage is plain.  The redeemed of the Lord should say so, by praising Him for gathering us together from the east and west, north, and south out of such foolish leadership and understanding.  We are one in Christ no longer to be bound by the solitary chains of this world system.  Oh, that men would praise the Lord for in doing so we are also forming by that same praise a weapon that fights against this present system that seeks to control us and put us in solitary places. 

We should not allow this world's propaganda to become the distraction that keeps us away from the real purpose of praising the Lord.  Our praise is the element we need to do warfare not just against this world’s propaganda, but it free’s us from this world to live in the unity of the faith in the presence of God.