Everything is either Direction or Distraction.
Yesterday, I was a little off. A few minor things where just pulling me one way or the other. Mainly feeling yucky, my stomach was unsettled. I had rushed out yesterday and drank a cup of milk on my way. It had not settled well in the pits of my stomach and I had a feeling of nausea most of the day. It didn’t get worse, however, it didn’t get better either. Sometimes our expectation is for things to get worse before they get better. Well I awoke this morning with the expectation of things to be much better. I would complete my reading of this section and then do my study, then get my writing done without distraction today. That was my direction for today.
With the reading done we headed off to the supermarket for some supplies. I didn’t need a lot, just some bread and eggs and I was going to look out for a local English magazine called the Central Brittany Journal. The owner had left an old one in the farmhouse and I realised it would have some good connections in for the near future. I enquired at the checkout regarding the magazine. I had found the young lady from last week who works on a Monday morning. She was born in Horsham in the South of England and lived there before moving to France in her mid-school years. So she spoke wonderful English which was a great help to me when looking for things I could not find for myself. She led me to the journal section and showed me where the English section is and the last copy of the Central Brittany journal, bless her.
I was best pleased, not only that because she also explained the reason for some tickets that I received freely along with my purchases. There are posters stuck in prominent positions around the town and I had studied them for a short while and not known what they were for. It’s a tombola type town draw, for every 3 Euros you spend in the next 2 weeks you receive a numbered ticket that goes into a draw. Prizes include; holiday to Greece, Food hampers, monetary prizes 500 euro, 250 euro etc… Well, they were free and I had found out what the posters were about plus got the magazine which will give me information about English speaking church services and other local knowledge of events and such. I was most pleased as I then thought that I am in front with direction today only need to get back. Do one more part of study on the book of Numbers, then I’m ready to write an overview.
I started the next study, watching a download on the study of the book of Numbers on my laptop. All of a sudden the cursor disappears, strange I thought, not to worry as I scroll around on the touchpad expecting it to reappear. Meanwhile on the film, the professor has just started talking about Chapter 13 from Numbers, where the 12 spies are sent to Canaan. This Chapter has come alive to me over the last 2 days enormously, the professor calls it the Window of Opportunity and uses these words emphatically;
EVERYTHING IS EITHER DIRECTION OR DISTRACTION.
I let the words swill around for a while, and they sit well. I reach for the cursor to replay it, but I can’t as its disappeared!
My phone starts to bleep repeatedly. It’s not a message or a call or low battery. It’s something that I’ve not heard before and I’m, not one to be at the beck and call of my phone but I get up to check it momentarily. The bar across the top rail is full of messenger icons. Its saying that I have sent loads of messages? I open it up and I have a message from an old friend that I have not heard from in a long time until last night. He had sent me a message that I tried to open but couldn’t, so I left it. His new message was that His phone had been hacked and the message his phone had sent me was some sort of phishing scam. Well, my phone had now started to send the same message to many people in my mailing list. I was getting messages in return saying that they couldn’t open them and was it from me? I quickly realised that they in turn, would send this to all of their mailing list if they opened it so it was necessary to send another message to the people that this bogus message had been sent to. I couldn’t keep up with it, it took over an hour and a half of quickly identifying to whom it had sent a message to, which turned out to be everyone of my Facebook and messenger friends, and sending them a quick message, not to open the message, that my phone, in turn, had been hacked and that I was sorry.
The time that I was in front with my studies and preparation had quickly evaporated into being behind and the potential writing. The end product of the study was not now at the front of my mind. It isn’t lost, gone away forever, its just moved temporarily in time. Probably just until this early evening when I can re look over my notes again and restart.
So is it true as the earlier statement suggests, is everything direction or distraction? Well in respect of this particular incident, then Yes it is, but is it true without this specific time or example. Then Yes it is, I, as I can only speak for myself, I am only moving in the direction that God has for me or has instructed me so that I am following or I am not. Therefore I am either being distracted or allowing myself to be distracted, it really is that simple.
At times I get lost in the simplicity, especially and specifically when I am distracted. I tend to not look at it like that, moreover choosing to convince myself that I need to do this or that or the other. Nothing harmful, just distracted. As I will be back on direction soon, there in lies the danger for myself. I need to be following Gods direction completely, wholeheartedly, ALL of the time and not allowing distractions the window of opportunity.
God bless