This morning was a learning moment for me. Honestly, as I sit and write this I am ashamed of how I handled the moment. So after Lindsey leaves every morning for work I usually have about an hour with our two boys before my parents or her parents pick them up and I head to work myself. Today was no different. She had just left, and Eli and Silas were watching their Mickey Mourse Clubhouse. As it ended, Eli asked me to go play trains. “Of course buddy.” Hearing that, Silas grabbed my hand and started pulling me towards their toy room. So here we are all three of us getting the trains out, with Eli dividing them up evenly between them. (Well as close to even as a 4 year old understands, he had 6 traincars and Silas had 4). But they were both content so that is more what mattered.
After about 5 minutes or so, I started to notice my phone going off in my pocket. So of course, I gotta check it right. It could be important I justified in my head. It was ESPN telling me that Major Leauge Baseball had decided to actually play a game next year at the “field of dreams” in Iowa. I gotta click on it, this sounds kinda interesting. Here I am lost in the article, when next thing you know though Eli is in the back trying to get my attention. “Daddy, Pay attention, My train is on fire and you have the fire truck.” (Make believe of course). “I’m sorry bud.” Telling myself it wont happen again. And then he goes, “daddy there could have been an expwosion and you weren’t watching.” So here we keep playing some more but then of course my phone goes off again. You would have thought I had learned the first time, but nope of course not. Email this time from the post office letting me know what is coming in the mail today. So important right. This time I hear Silas screaming. As I look up I notice that Eli has taken all the trains from him. Yet again I was to distracted to notice.
Now I would love to tell you that was the end of it, but it happened twice more. An unimportant phone call and then facebook telling me about notifications. All my boys wanted was some time to play with daddy yet I let my mind be distracted. After the fourth time I finally learned and set my phone in the living room, knowing I only had so much time with them before they’d be picked up. I would love to say that I have learned my lesson but how many of us do the same thing. Allow distractions to take away from precious moments. Whether it is time with our kids, a date night with our wives, a night out with friends. Do we know how to engage anymore, or are we consumed and distracted?
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” James 4:8
Spiritually speaking, how often are we the same way. God desiring time with us. Wanting to speak to us, teach us, pour into us, and yet we are just to distracted. He is trying to whisper to us and yet we have so much other noise that we can’t hear him. Have we lost what it means to just be in his presence. James tell us that He will draw near to us, but are we ready to take the moment to draw near to Him. We say we crave him, we desire him, we want to know hime more. Are we willing to set aside the phone, the noise, the distractions. What if God is trying to get our attention saying to us like Eli did this morning, “Pay attention.” But instead of screaming like my boys, His voice is just a whisper, not the screaming and shouting forcing our attention. He is just waiting for us to be intimate enough that we can hear that still, small voice.
“After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.” I Kings 19:12
My boys were craving that time with me, what if today God is craving that time with you? Let me finish with this thought. Can you imagine at the end of your life God saying to you, I had so much to teach you, to share with you, but you were just to distracted.