Those darn "D"'s

While driving the other day some revelations came to my head.  It was just one of those rare moments of clarity when thoughts not only come, but they are powerful, revealing, and gripping, almost as if there is a life lesson to be learned as God chose to still my heart and mind long enough to listen to what He had to say to me.  I like it when that happens, because it serves to remind me that I am on the right track, I am making forward progress (ever so slightly it so often seems), and that there is hope for me yet.  Those times make me smile, and want to shout out that God has just spoken to me....yes, me !!!!

In our one sided conversation (yes, I just listened for a change) it was made quite clear to me that there are a bunch of "D's" that interfere with my growth as one who is trying to be a better man, husband, and father.  I suspect that many, upon just a bit of introspection, might also feel the same way.  Frankly, as long as we are breathing, I can't see how we can NOT be affected by at least some of those darn "D's".

1. Distractions:  many things can become distractions in our efforts to grow more Christ like.  Our jobs, our family life, our needs for rest and recreation, unintended interruptions in our routines, work issues, even just the dailyness of our daily lives.  While each of those things surely offer us multiple opportunities to grow in Christ, do not we often allow them to become the very distractions that they really aren't or perhaps shouldn't be?
2. Detours:  I absolutely know about detours.  Many of us do.  We run into detours because WE set up the barricades ourselves and re-route our lives.....because we think we can do our lives better than He can.  True?  It is really easy to throw some barricades up so that we can take a detour, yes?
3. Doubts:  As a follow up to detours, may it be the case that we take those detours because we either doubt, or have doubts  about what God's direction for us is?  I mean, after all it is our lives and who knows us better than ourselves?  W.R.O.N.G!!!  Oh but, we sometimes forget that only God really knows us and what is best for us.  Doubts cause us to become hard of hearing when we need to hear that small still voice within us.
4. Detractions:  Detractions actually differ just a bit from distractions in that we have more direct control over what we allow to distract us than we do over detractions.  For the most part, detractions are more externally (and thus harder to avoid) caused than distractions, and thus our method of dealing with them differs somewhat.  Some examples of detractions might be a catastrophic event like a death or sudden serious illness, extended vacations, living in an unevenly yoked relationship, etc.  While each of these provides us with ample opportunity to grow spiritually, they equally provide us with ample opportunity to not be as strong spiritually as if they weren't there in the first place.
5. Desires:  Simply put, I know my own desires, and I know just how easily they can (and do) result in my brokenness.  If my only desire was to be a true follower of Christ certainly none of the "D's" would have any effect on me at all.  I sense that most all of us know the jams our desires can get us into, and the result of those jams on our sense of spirituality.
6. Disturbances:  Huh???  How about such things as anger, jealousy, greed, ego....are they not disturbances?  Are they not things that stand in the way of calm, joy, peace, harmony, etc?  And therefore are they not disturbances?

Sometimes it's not pretty to look deeply into ourselves.  We don't like what we see, and we fear change.  Or we fear that we can't change.  The glue that holds me together personally is the fact that I know I have received God's grace and that He is completely aware of my struggles with those darn "D's", and yet He loves me completely anyway because all He is asking of me is to keep putting one foot in front of the other each day and while doing so strive to make that one day better than the last.  He is looking for progress...not perfection.