Distraction

In the car, on the way to Vania's choir, it occurred to me that God created us for distraction. And, ironically, I got distracted from writing.

So my thinking goes like this... God created us. He knows how our brains work. He intentionally created our brains to work this way. Jesus told us that the kingdom of heaven is made of people who are child-like (trusting, full of wonder and mystery, curious, learning, growing). We're fallen, broken people. We've twisted what God gave us.

Rockhouse Center bases their counselling on the idea (fact?) that addiction comes from dis-ease, a discomfort in our soul. Addictions are a result of our own attempt to distract ourselves from this discomfort. Our body, brain, can't resolve the conflict. So it finds some way to ignore it. After all, if we pretend that it's not there, then we never have to deal with it.

This distraction takes many forms. The most egregious being substance abuse. But it also includes Facebook, shallow relationships, dysfunctional families, blabbering, complaining, work, and just about anything that we use to take our minds off our own pain.

Here's the problem - distraction doesn't solve anything. Morphine may take the pain away. But the cancer will still kill you. Lack of pain is not the same as healed. You have to know what's wrong before you can fix it.

I do a lot of fixing in my job. And that's one thing I'm sure my manager doesn't like hearing. I have to know the problem before I can fix it. Symptoms are not the problem. Symptoms point me in the direction of the problem. (side note... I have a great manager who understands this and lets us fix the underlying causes when it's appropriate).

Our problems boil down into spiritual needs not being met. The discomfort we feel is a constant struggle between our body and our spirit. The body wants to solve our spiritual problems. Does that sound ridiculous? It is. And that's why distractions never work.

We allow our bodies this control because our spirit does not submit to God. Our spirits aren't big enough to control the universe. Shoot, my spirit can't even control my body, let alone anything else outside of me. And this is  why my distractions fail.

But I started this entry with the premise that God created us to be distracted. He built into us this mechanism that ignores repeatable events. Then He created a sun that rises every day and food that grows for us. And still asks us to be thankful. Doesn't that seem a little weird?

Something in my head isn't right. I notice differences that a lot of other people have learned to ignore. I'm a slow learner 😊. Believe me, it is annoyingly distracting. My kids often wish I didn't notice these things. It comes off as being a perfectionist. It's not about perfection. I want to ignore those things. Why? Because there are so many other, more important things to notice.

God created this huge, vast, universe just chock full of mysteries and beautiful things. There is always more. We learn to ignore the mundane because He always intended us to see the more majestic things that He's done. We ignore the sun rising and instead look at the black hole millions of light years away and wonder why it's there. What mysteries did God hide inside?

When distracting myself from pain, I am trying to take something away. When distraction lets me see God's greatness, it is filling me. See the difference? One distraction takes away. The other adds to. Distraction isn't bad. It was, as everything God created, intended for more. What are you distracting yourself from, or to?