Hosanna Restoration Church

I had an interesting thing happen to me recently. I was singing the National anthem, which I have done many times over the years. As I was singing there was someone singing behind me and I began to listen to this person more than I was paying attention to what I was doing. I thought I heard some different words and wondered if I was mixed up or something and suddenly my mind went blank. I mean just plain blank. I had no idea where I had even stopped. I turned to collect myself and then went on and finished the song. Most songs if I forget a verse I can just make something up, but that is one where the phrases need to be the same and right!

As I was praying and reflecting on incident I saw a wonderful spiritual picture. I saw what happens when we start listening more to what is going on around us than we do to the things we know to be true. If we start listening more to what the world has to say about things than we do to what the Word says, we end up saying and doing things that are totally out of character. It is like we have forgotten what we know about the will of God. We doubt and question and then wonder how we got ourselves in a mess.

The good news is that we can recover by simply turning to God. After my moment of brain lock, I turned and finished the song on autopilot. It haunted me some, and it caused me to pray, so that was good. Best of all it reminded me to stay tuned in to what I know. Then today I read this psalm and it reinforced the lesson.

I want to be clear, that it was my own fault that I got distracted. It was not the fault of another person singing along. It was my fault for allowing myself to be distracted. I then moved from distracted to doubting what I knew and right into knowing nothing for a moment.

In the same way, it is our responsibility to always focus on God. It is our responsibility to trust Him all day every day. It is no one else’s fault if we falter. We must never think that nothing could distract us. Scripture says that we need to be careful when we think we can stand better than others, lest we ourselves should fall.

We ask God to lead us and teach us because He is the God who saved us. He is faithful to do His part. We need to do ours and focus on Him every day, all day long. There are so many voices out there trying to throw us off track. Only staying close to the Lord and trusting in His word will keep us from falling into traps that the devil sets.

As I think about it, I saw the problem coming when the song started. Had I focused in on what I knew rather that listening in to something else, it all would have been avoided. But then I may not have learned the lesson so well! I would much rather learn that way than having a spiritual wreck first.