“For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:3-7
I once heard a wise saying that brings the perspective of distractions into focus for me. “Whatever is not your assignment is your distraction.” I used to talk to my athletes a lot about this, especially on game day. I would say that during the game your assignment must be primary. If the guy across the line gets you thinking about him and the way he is holding you on every play or starts talking about your mother or even tells midget jokes about your head coach, you cannot let your mind go to those things. They are merely distractions that interfere with your assignment.
A distraction is anything that divides the attention, prevents concentration,
diverts, or entertains. Wow, is that almost our entire world! Television, radio, video games, smart phones, sports, hobbies, are all available at a moments notice, and these are only a few of the hundreds of activities that are ready and willing to take up our time. How do we discern between distractions of the world and assignments of God? How do we stay on task in a world that provides so many play things.
Most of us welcome distractions into our lives. They divert our attention from those more mundane things that can close in on us at times. Unfortunately, if we are not careful the distractions become our lives. Distractions in and of themselves are not necessarily bad, but when they interfere with more important assignments with regularity, it is time to reevaluate. Our spiritual life is important. When it becomes a rather small part of our day as opposed to other activities, it is probably time to do a distraction check.
One of the devil’s greatest weapons against Christians is our own ignorance. If he can deceive us, he can beat us. But do we allow our distractions to keep us from the assignment of knowing God? The Apostle Paul said, “I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments.” (Colossians 2:4) If we put all our energy into things that don’t strengthen our spiritual lives, we will remain ignorant and thus vulnerable. God warns us in Hosea that, “My people perish for a lack of understanding.” (Hosea 4:6) So to keep from being deceived and to keep from perishing, we need to know God better. To know God better, we cannot be live in a state of distraction from Him.
We can gain better understanding by reading the Word, listening to Christian music or sermons, fellowshipping with other Christians, praying, 
serving… well, you know the drill. If we were to draw a line in the sand and wrote all our time commitments that do not include God on one side and wrote down all the things that increase our spiritual understanding on the other, what would those lists look like? No matter how spiritual we are, the spiritual list will be shorter. We all have jobs, some of us have children, some of us have wonderful hobbies and all of us have a multitude of activities. It is not whether the spiritual list is shorter, it is whether it exists at all.
In Colossians 2:4 Paul attempts to expose the things that would keep us from growing in spiritual wisdom. The verse reads, “I am saying this so that no one will deceive you.” But his actual meaning is, “I am saying this so that no one will distract you.” The original language in Colossians 2:4 uses the word “beguile” which is a synonym for distraction and deception. What Paul is trying to say is “be aware.” Knowing that we cannot be in 
church 24-7 and knowing that there are many activities in our life, we must be careful that we do not involve ourselves in the world to the detriment of the things of God. Paul says in Romans, “I want you to be wise in what is good, and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet.” (Romans 16:19-20). If we don’t allow distractions to keep us from knowing God, Satan will be crushed by God. If we allow distractions to keep us from knowing God, it is us vs Satan and we are sorely overmatched.
We need to test our distractions. How do we do that? 
God told us in Philippians 4:8 when he said, “Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable–if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise–dwell on these things.” If our distractions don’t include these things, we may want to find some other distractions to be involved in. If they do, that probably means that we have Christ where he should be in our lives- at the center.
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