I have always been plagued by the distraction of busyness. I was reminded of two word pictures the Lord gave me years ago to better understand how these were affecting my life.

In the first picture, I was entering a large warehouse where I had an assignment to do. But when I opened the door, the whole room was filled with boxes, with no path through them. I knew I had to get to the other side of the room where my assignment awaited, so I started moving the boxes.

The boxes were large and empty, light but bulky to move, and were stacked high. One by one I started moving the boxes. I wasn’t taking them outside, just moving them aside to make a path to the other side of the room.

It took all day to finally clear a path to the back of the room where my assignment waited. However, since it was the end of the day, it was too late and I was too tired to start the job. So I walked back through the boxes to leave, thinking I would get started on the assignment tomorrow.

But the next day when I came back, the boxes had all shifted and once again blocked the path to get to the back of the room. I started the tiring task of moving the boxes one by one to get to my assignment. And once again by the time I made it to the back of the room, it was too late to start the job.

This happened day after day, and I never did complete my assignment, let alone even start it. I spent my days moving empty boxes, which symbolized the empty works of no lasting value that made up my days. 

In the second word picture, I was standing at point A on a road. I could see my destination, point B, straight ahead. It was a short walk, and led to my purpose. So I started to walk toward point B. But I came to a path off to the right, and something down that path caught my attention. I decided to quickly go see what it was. Whatever it was held my attention much longer than I expected.

I knew I had to get back on the main road again. As I again started walking towards my destination, there was a path to the left. I saw people who were struggling and needed help, so I ran down the path to help them. But this also took much longer than planned, and I worked to help these people so long that I was very weary. I knew I had to get back to where I was supposed to be walking.

Again I headed for point B, but never quite made it to my destination. There was always another path off to the right or left that distracted me and kept me from my purpose. None of these things were bad or sinful, but they were not what God was calling me to do. These were good lessons for me.

Is there something that’s distracting you from the purpose God has for you? Is the busyness of life keeping you from your assignments? We need to diligently focus and persevere to fulfill our purposes, so we can say with the apostle Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful” (2 Timothy 4:7).

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