Saturday May 7, 2011

One Saturday I got up and decided to fertilize the orange and grapefruit trees in my back yard. As I went into the kitchen is saw the dishes needed to be put into the dishwasher and started to do that and felt like a cup of coffee. As I was making the coffee, I saw that my hat needed to be put away and when I walked by the trash can it was overflowing so I proceeded to take the trash out and noticed my car needed to be washed. As I was getting out the bucket to wash the car I noticed that my workbench needed to be organized. Do you get the picture? I had intended to fertilize my fruit trees, but whatever came into my eye gaze became the task at the moment. And at the end of the day, none of the stuff got done. The car didn’t get washed. The coffee sat on the counter and didn’t get drank. The dishes didn’t get washed. The fruit trees didn’t get fertilized. Diversions pulled me away from what I had intended to do. None of these these things were bad themselves, but they diverted my attention away from what I really needed to do.

As Nehemiah was seeking to build the wall, diversions popped up that he needed to address. In Nehemiah 5 we read, “Some were saying, ‘We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.’ Others were saying, ‘We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.’ Still others were saying, ‘We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.'” some diversions are important and need to be addressed. Some diversions are not really important and we need to out them off to accomplish what God has called us to do. Diversions are side roads to the main goal and lead us to dead ends. Diversions can come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. A diversion can be a relationship that causes us to divert our attention away from God’s call. It can be an item that brings security to our lives when we are walking by faith and trusting Him for our needs. A diversion can be a recreational toy or exercise that takes all our spare time from what God has called us to do. None of these these things are bad in and of themselves. It’s when they divert our attention away from what God has called us to do that they become oppositional.

On this journey there will be diversions that tempt us to veer from our route and we need to be careful to make sure we are not drawn to and spend our time on the diversions.