In Issue No. 1, we looked at the idea of being focused on the Kingdom. To seek the Kingdom of God means you are intentionally pouring your energy, time, and attention into the quest of finding it.

Keeping our hearts and minds fixated on the Kingdom and the righteousness of God, will keep us moving in the right direction, closer and closer to God. But if we don't, we will be pulled away from God and towards the world.

This is illustrated in Jesus' response to people who wanted to follow Him, BUT only after they got some important things done first.

What It Means To Be Distracted

Imagine you're driving down the road and a billboard catches your eye. You can't help but take a look, and ironically enough, it says "Don't Text And Drive". In the split second it took you to read that message, you can feel the car drifting to the left while your wife...calmly...reminds you to pay attention to the road. That's distraction. You intend for your vehicle to go in a specific direction but when you take your attention away it starts to drift in an entirely different direction.

The word "distracted" comes from a Latin word that means to draw or pull apart and by late Middle English meant to pull in different directions. This perfectly illustrates our spiritual journey: our intent as Christians is to be aimed at and moving toward the Kingdom of God, but being distracted means we set our hearts on something else that pulls us in an entirely different direction away from the Kingdom.

Being Distracted Is A Choice

It would be really easy to blame something or someone else, but the hard truth is that being distracted is a choice. It might hurt to hear that, but we must acknowledge the truth if we expect to grow. In the parable of Jesus, the laborer made a choice to look back instead of keeping his focus on the work before him.

Thinking through the context of Luke 9:62, it seems like choosing to be distracted comes down to two reasons:

1. The object of our distraction is more valuable to us than the Kingdom: When this is the case, it becomes very easy for us to make the trade off and the deception reinforces itself because we may get short-term satisfaction, making it difficult to clearly see the long-term value God offers us.
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2. The object of our distraction is helping us avoid the difficulty before us: If it's not about value, maybe the only thing we're seeking is an escape from the work we need to do. It's hard to bear our cross daily, but it's much harder and far more costly to avoid doing what we need to do.

We have to keep our hand to the plow and our heart pointed in the direction of the Kingdom or our plow will get way off course. And the consequences are dire.

Distraction Will Make You Unfit for The Kingdom

Constantly going back and forth between seeking the Kingdom and turning to look in another direction is what James 1:8 calls having a double mind. This vicious cycle will make us unstable in every area of life and it's exhausting. It would be like your feet trying to walk in two different directions. It's not possible and you will end up falling down and never making progress.

Ultimately, the outcome of choosing to be distracted is spelled out in no uncertain terms. Jesus says the servant who looks back is unfit for the Kingdom. So, if we spend our life letting ourselves be pulled away from the Kingdom, we will spend eternity getting what we wanted: being far away from the Kingdom.