Stay Your Mind

Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV)
You will keep him in perfect peace, 
      
Whose mind is stayed on You,
      
Because he trusts in You.

I watched a great skit once by two talented comics titled, “Distract and Confuse”.  The story line was that these men were presenting a new product for capturing souls to a convention of devils.  Their new product was touted as a sure-fire method.  They taught that all one needs to do is to simply distract their intended victims attention away from God and then confuse them while they are distracted.  The salesmen promoted this procedure as the best thing to hit their business since the “Apple Incident” back in the Garden of Eden.

Setting the humor aside, there is a scary and powerful point to this skit.  The devil is out to get us and we are prone to distraction and confusion.

1Peter 5:6-11 (NIV)
Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

The way to defend against the attacks of the devil is to focus our attention on God constantly.  When we focus on God there is no distraction.  And, when we concentrate on God we are far less susceptible to confusion.

2Corinthians 10:5 (NIV)
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

The result of our constant concentration on God is, in a word, peace.

Isaiah 26:3 (Amplified)
You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.

God has designed us with an early warning system regarding our distractions.  We can quickly gage our attention on God by the state of our emotions.  When confusion, anger, frustration, sadness, etc. present themselves we know that we have allowed ourselves to be distracted.  These non-peaceful emotions serve to guide us back to God (the only real source of peace in this world).

Bottom line is this; if you want peace in your life, then turn your full attention on God.

Stay your mind!
Lon Alderman
@leaderlifter