“I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” –Nehemiah 6:3b
Have you ever had the experience where you sat down to quickly book some reservations online, only to realize that you needed to first log back into your computer, then heard your phone ding that a text had come in? Then when you checked your text, it was a friend asking a quick but urgent question, so you speedily looked up the answer and sent him your response, but while on your phone realized you had a voicemail you hadn’t listened to yet? Playing the message, you realized you needed to call that person back quickly to resolve an issue. Finally, you get back to your PC to book those tickets, only to see an outrageous news headline that raises your blood pressure, so you first check out that story? Finally, an hour later, you get back to booking the tickets…if you even remember to do so? Ours in an Age of Distraction.
In this Old Testament story, we see the Jewish leader Nehemiah dealing with distractions. Some of his enemies were jealous of and unhappy about his successes, so they made what sounded like a kind invitation to chat: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.” However, seeing through their fraud, Nehemiah realized “[T]hey were scheming to harm me; so I sent messengers to them with this reply: ‘I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?’ Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.”
Nehemiah was so aware of the importance of his task and his need to focus on it–in his case, rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem–he refused to let himself be distracted or sidetracked by sideshows. His ancient example still offers us a lesson for today…especially in our age of “Digital Distractions.” What “great project” are you working on now? What distractions do you need to jettison in order to get it done?
S.D.
