What is being used to divert our attention away from what is really happening at this moment in history? The diversions taking place, and there are several and they are significant, are being used to direct our attention away from the real issues that will most dramatically affect our lives.
There is a potpourri of significant news taking place at this moment like Putin’s aircraft disappearing from radar yesterday as he fled Moscow while a coup is taking place. It could be the discovery this week of the latest and most damning evidence about President Biden using his influence to enrich himself and his family. Or the war in Ukraine and interpreting the reason for conflict on a surface interpretation that we are being told is a fact. Maybe it’s the ongoing threat of an invasion of Taiwan by China while Chinese spy balloons orbited over our military bases this year unchallenged, or the installation of Chinese radar units in Cuba. What are we being told to ignore? Pick your diversion.
A diversion is defined as something that turns our attention away from reality. It diverts our minds and has us waste our time focusing on lesser issues that are used to mask what is really taking place.
The most surprising thing in all of this is the naivety exhibited by some followers of Jesus who take the bait, hook line, and sinker, of a prepared diversion narrative parroting the talking points of their favorite news outlet or social commentator. Even the language and logic of the world are being used by some believers to help promote a diversion.
My years working in organized crime taught me something. All is never as it seems. The restaurant on the corner was not a neighborhood mom-and-pop business. It was a front for a money-laundering enterprise used by the mob. The tip I was given about a major drug trafficking ring led me and my partner to a respected high-ranking officer in our department who was a major player in the drug ring under investigation. When the hard evidence was brought to my superiors, we were told there was “nothing to see here.” The very ones debriefing us themselves had ties to organized crime.
Before you toss out what I just wrote as the work of an overactive imagination or a hardened ex-cop interpretation of reality, pause for just a moment and reconsider your understanding of reality. If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, that love will require that we teach our people how to discern reality. To do that we must raise our spiritual eyesight above the diversions we have been told are hard and immovable facts. The world is truly not all that it seems when it comes to what our eyes see and our ears hear or what we have been told to believe.
Paul wrote, “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians (3”:14). To “press on” is defined as pursuing something with an aggressive effort. It means to not allow anything to get in the way. This pursuit does not mean we are given permission to over-spiritualize away the realities of life and ignore what is taking place in our world.
The phrase Paul used saying “pressed toward” could be translated as the image of a person running forward something not allowing the stumbling blocks in their way, the diversions laid in their path, to trip them up in their pursuit of what really matters. Only by being aware and not ignoring the interfering presence of a diversion can we run this kind of race while keeping the most important prize always in sight. That focus will help us remain in our lane and finish well the race of our faith.
Amen for discernment on every level…Jesus said “Follow Me.” That means understanding like Jesus understood. Know who our enemy is in the light of the divine calling which is to feed His sheep, preach in season and out, be ready for the Great Harvest and bring in the lost souls.