Overcoming the Demons of Distraction, Ep 2-20
Welcome back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are going to be discussing the demons of Distraction. These demons use multiple strategies and are so subtle we don't notice it until we are already distracted and sometimes even forget what we were originally doing. First we will discuss what the demon of distraction is, then we will look at some biblical examples of distraction and discuss examples of this demon at work this past week and in a deliverance. Finally we will talk about what we need to do to overcome this influence and evict it from our lives.
Let's first talk about the demon of Distraction. Who is this demon? You don't hear a lot about it and that is actually part of how this demon works. It doesn't want you to know about him because that would defeat the purpose of his work. If he is doing his job correctly, you won't be able to follow through on understanding who he is because he can keep you focused elsewhere. So if we are dealing with this demon we will have issues with: focus, completing projects, following through on our commitments, remembering appointments, time management. This will create problems in our relationships, in our work responsibilities and prevent us from achieving personal goals. All of that is bad enough, but the real intention of this demon is to keep us from developing and maintaining our relationship with the Lord. Using those other areas of our life is the distraction that will keep our wheels spinning so we don't read the Bible, pray, go to church, go to Bible study, all the things we need in our lives to keep them orderly and close to the Lord so we can hear His voice above the demon of distraction.
This demon will frequently be seen working together with the demons of frustration, forgetfulness, confusion, indifference, procrastination, and restlessness
Let's look at some Biblical examples where we can see this demon at work.
First, I know we picked on Eve a few weeks ago, but we need to take a look at her again. Genesis 3, we see the distraction unfold. To give some context to the situation, Eve was made to be a helper for Adam and Adam's responsibility was the Garden of Eden. Adam was to work the Garden of Eden and take care of it. So Eve should have been busy at work tending to Garden activities. The Bible doesn't tell us what their responsibilities were but we do know it was a sizeable area because it supported all the animals. As a side note, based on the Bible's description, we have some clues geographically where the Garden of Eden likely was located and that is an area referred to as Mesopotamia. In our modern day geography it is most likely determined to be in the Persian Gulf area, in northern Kuwait and Iraq.
Ok, back to our point, Eve's role was to be a helper in the Garden of Eden so she had areas she was meant to be focusing on in the Garden. At the time she was tempted by Satan she was alone, so that leads me to believe that Adam was somewhere working, they would likely have spent their downtime together. While alone, she would be more vulnerable than when Adam was there. We are all usually stronger when we have someone else there, the Bible even tells us that. So likely, she was on her own working and she was distracted by Satan. That first distraction was very costly to her personally. It changed her life immediately in her spiritual death and her life in terms of pain in child bearing and the land they were then given to them was cursed. Once they were ousted from the Garden of Eden, I can only imagine the amount of regret she had.
Now let's take a look at Samson. To read about Samson, we need to go into Judges and his story starts at Chapter 13. The Israelites have been misbehaving and God delivered them into the hands of the Philistines for 40 years. Samson was God's answer to ending that judgment. God took a barren woman and blessed her with a son who was to be treated differently from the moment he was conceived. Throughout his life, Samson had the spirit of the Lord with him. Unfortunately, he still made some mistakes and misjudgments and allowed himself to be distracted. His relationship with the Lord was severed as a result of poor judgment in his relationship with Delilah, that's in Judges 16:20. He made the mistake of telling Delilah how God gave him his strength even after she had betrayed him 3 times. So when the Lord left him, his strength left him and some pretty torturous things happened to him as a result. In the end, he did kill thousands of Philistines, but he died along with them.
Allowing the distraction of Delilah and then all the continual distractions she caused led him to a terrible end.
Now let's take a look at David. We are going to go to 2 Samuel 11 for this story. Let's set the scene: It is spring, the men of Israel are at war and David, their King isn't where he is supposed to be which is at war with them, instead he is at home. He gets distracted when he sees Bathsheba, wants her, but she is married to one of his men. David doesn't care, sends for her, does what he wants to do and ultimately Bathsheba gets pregnant. David does multiple things to try to cover up his sin by adding more sin to the mix and ultimately creates a huge mess for himself by getting Bathsheba's husband killed to help cover up the pregnancy. God isn't happy, he sends Nathan to rebuke David and tell him the consequences. The baby dies, the household is sent into chaos, which means the kingdom of Israel is affected.
David allowed himself to be distracted. His relationship with the Lord was disrupted and the consequences were permanent. Innocent lives were lost. David was not the only one to pay the price for the sins that followed his distraction.
Okay so we know these Bible stories, what does that mean to us today? We have WAY more opportunities to be distracted today. Our cell phones alone offer endless hours of escape, hours of entertainment, ways to do things we shouldn't, ways to shop, ways to learn, not all the opportunities are negative, but they all can be a distraction if we are not careful. As I was preparing for this podcast, I went on my phone to look up something and got distracted by a video of Gordon Ramsey showing me how to make a delicious Wagyu burger. I then did not remember why I even picked up my phone, that was yesterday, and I still don't remember. While that did not have a lasting impact on me, distractions are in the small places and in the more impactful places.
This past weekend I was in a prayer meeting. At my church before the service, a group meets for prayer and we do soaking where we have a specific focus and ask the Lord about it. So not your typical prayer time, no one is speaking because we are focused and waiting on the Lord, or writing out what the Lord said to us individually and we share at the end. The room we are in is used for the middle schoolers after we leave. This past week during the payer time, no less than 5 different people came in the room to open or adjust a window. Everybody went to the same window, seemingly to do the same thing. Two other people came in the room looking around for something else. Two people came in late, one person brought in a kid about 5 years old who isn't at an age where he could sit still and be quiet to allow the rest of the room to have our prayer time. The room was full of distractions. I've never seen so many people in and out of a room that is supposed to be quiet and focused. This isn't me complaining, it's me describing it for you to understand what was happening this past Sunday that doesn't normally happen. I will say, from the moment I walked in the room, I knew something was going to be off that morning. There was an interference present but I didn't know why or where it was coming from, so I decided to keep that to myself and just wait to see what happened. Wherever God wants to move, the enemy does too to keep us from moving with God and fulfilling His plans.
No one, nowhere is immune to distractions. How we respond to them is what we need to address.
Earlier this year I was doing a deliverance on a woman, we'll call her Jane, and it was probably one of the more severe cases I have seen. As we were beginning the deliverance I could tell this would take a while and there were going to be some manifestations along the way. A lot of times in these situations the manifestations that appear are not necessarily to do with the person but more about a show to distract the person who is there to facilitate the deliverance. This process was about hours, which is longer than I would normally go in one sitting but the demons were working really hard to stay. The further we progressed, the more resistant they were to my commands. Ultimately if the person is giving me this authority and wants this to happen then the demons have to obey the authority I have in Jesus. The authority we all have. However, in this particular case, they were stalling. The enemy was intending to use manifestations to scare me, or deceive me into thinking I couldn't make them leave. They tried several manifestations like having her head roll around and making her face contort to see if that makes me freak out because then they can gain some ground. As long as the person isn't being harmed, I don't react to anything they are doing. The name calling doesn't matter to me, the evil words don't matter to me, they hold no power or authority so I keep going in my commands for them to leave. They will try to have conversation, which is intended to make me lose focus on my agenda to evict them.
Whether the enemy is using tactics that are subtle or bold, we can't lose our focus. They will work as hard as they need to because they know if they can get us distracted one time, they can build on breaking us down in our relationship and time with the Lord.
So how do we overcome these attempts at our time and attention? First let's go back to see who the demon if distraction works with and how that plays on our emotions.
When we are feeling: frustration, indifference,
When we are experiencing: forgetfulness, confusion, procrastination, and restlessness
Those demons are working to make us feel vulnerable. The thing about our feelings is that we can't always trust our own feelings. How many times have you had your feelings hurt only to later find out you misunderstood something someone said. Our feelings are not always the best judge of a situation so we need to be aware that our feelings can distract us from the Lord. Someone asked me last night in a discussion about the essentialness of daily prayer, "what do I do if I don't feel like praying?" My response is simple, you pray anyway, even if it's just saying "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus " over and over again. Don't let feelings override your actions because they will distract you and confuse your purpose and direction.
So to overcome distraction be mindful of our feelings directing our actions. We also need to be honest about our time management and how much time we are spending with the Lord. Look back at the last week and see where you intended to spend time with the Lord and evaluate it by activity, church, prayer, bible study, reading the bible. Break it all out so you can see the patterns develop. Document how or why you were distracted and didn't do what you had planned. Then decide how you will correct it. We need to be intentional about what we do and being accountable if we have a problem with distractions.
If we look at Jesus as an example, we will have a better understanding of how to improve our own lives. Jesus frequently stepped away from everyone and had his alone time with His Father. That was a necessity in His life and if it were necessary for the Jesus then we are no exception and should model what worked for Him in our own lives.
I hope this has been helpful to you. If you know anyone who can benefit from this, please share this podcast.
As always let’s recap Top Show Points:
Discussed the demons of Distraction
These demons use multiple strategies and are subtle
Demon of Distraction doesn't want you to know about him because that would defeat the purpose of his work. If he is doing his job correctly, you won't be able to follow through on understanding who he is because he can keep you focused elsewhere.
This demon will frequently be seen working together with the demons of frustration, forgetfulness, confusion, indifference, procrastination, and restlessness
Example of Eve getting distracted in the Garden of Eden and the costs of that distraction to her immediately and forevermore.
Example of Samson and his momentary distraction and giving in to Delilah and the painful immediate cost to him and ultimately led to his destruction.
Example of David and his distraction by Bathsheba and the loss of innocent life and the impact to the Kingdom.
Example of distractions in a prayer meeting at my own church
Example of demon trying to distract me during a deliverance
Do not let your feelings override our actions and distract us
We talked about how to document our activities and the distractions so we can see patterns of distractions and decide how to correct it
Use Jesus as an example of how to focus on alone time with the Lord
We encourage you:
· To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment
· If you want to learn more about how to Hear God's Voice, take a look at my book, Loving Conversations: How to Pray and Hear God's Voice. There is also a Study Guide available and two new devotionals coming out based on the Loving Conversations Book. One devotional is for women and one is for men.
I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!
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