Distracted

You know me, I get distracted. I'll try to tidy up the house and end up patching Brilyn's jeans instead.
I'll be talking about making bread and tell you about how I used to wet my hair down and make it curly around my face and use hair spray to keep it that way and is there any chance I didn't look like some sort of Jane Austen throwback?
Distraction is normal. But, my house didn't get tidied and I didn't get to tell you how to make that bread, did I? I know you know what it is like to set out to complete a task, get distracted, and go to bed that night and think, "Good grief, I never did do_____." Jesus knew this about humanity and spoke directly about it:

Luke 21: 34-36
³⁴ “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly. ³⁵ For it will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶ Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

He knows our propensity to get bored, get distracted, and get lost in the mundane: Luke 18:8b
"Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” He had just finished telling folks to be persistent in prayer and ends by asking if anyone will actually do it.

I think it is partly because we get lulled into complacency. The world sings a lullaby of good food, entertaining TV shows, pretty clothes, comfortable homes, constant connection through technology; and we forget. We forget why we are here. We forget we are strangers, travelers. We forget that this world is not our home. We forget that we are here to be salt and light. Instead, what are we? Consumers? That's what the experts refer to our population as; consumers. What's a good synonym for that.... Devourers?

We live our lives like the folks James addresses in James chapter 4:

Do Not Boast About Tomorrow

¹³ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; ¹⁴ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
¹⁷ Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

So interesting that I just wanted to share this verse in regard to our planning and focus on the things of this world that will pass away- but that last verse- 'to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin'...to him who knows to do good but gets distracted.....

I write all this today because, before I open my mouth for the cause of the speechless, the downtrodden, the terribly oppressed, the fatherless, the lost, I want to make sure that you care to hear. I want you to count the cost of living for this life and self or living for Christ and others.
Take heed of yourself. Look inside and decide how you will respond to the needs of others. Because otherwise, when you hear the stories I will tell or share, or see the pictures I will post, you will turn away. You will allow yourself to be distracted. You will say to yourself: Soon. Next year. When I have more money. When my kids are older. When I have a real house. When I have more time.

Christ calls to you- do not be distracted. James warns you- do not assume that you have next year.

What if you open your heart to this call? What would happen if everyone who reads this post and the posts to come decides to DO something. To finally step out in faith and radically obey Christ's teaching to love and care for your neighbor as you do yourself?
I read a statistic that if just one in seven Christians took James 1:27 seriously that every orphan in the world would have all they need.
²⁷ Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

You could be one in seven. You could make a difference. Our world could be filled with light- the light of smiling children, clothed, fed, released from their oppressors. The Light of Jesus.

The call is there. How will you answer?

*Where's your treasure*
~Joce