The Importance of Setting Aside Every Distraction

When the Shunammite woman sees that she has lost her son, she goes to her husband. Having left her son in the prophet’s room, she asks her husband for help so she can go see the prophet

but she does not tell him the whole story. There we could clearly see how important it is for us to be devoted to the Lord so that God can truly speak to us and carry out His purposes in our lives, because if we are superficial like the Shunammite’s husband, as we saw in our last meditation, then God will withhold His great revelations from our lives.

Now, we see here that when this woman prepares the donkey on which she will go to the prophet, she tells her servant: “Drive on, and do not make me stop along the way unless I tell you to.” And then she immediately set out and went to Mount Carmel, where the prophet of God lived.

What I see here, and what I want to single out, is this element of concentration, of focus. This woman is determined and clear-minded, and she knows that she needs every resource of faith she can muster to do what she must do. She does not want to be drawn into idle conversations; she does not want to stop until she gets where she needs to go.

And even later, when the man of God sees her from afar, he sends Gehazi, his servant, to greet her. Gehazi asks a few social questions: How are you? Are things well with you? Is your husband well? And look at her answer. She said to him, “Well.” A short answer, simply to dismiss him and set him aside, because she knows she needs to go to the prophet Elisha himself. She does not want to be drawn into superficial conversations, and she knows that Gehazi is not the man she needs. She needs Elisha himself, because the magnitude of the miracle calls for a great intervention from God that can come only through the prophet.

How important it is, brothers and sisters, that we be dedicated and persistent when we have great petitions to bring before the Lord. That is why fasting, for example, is so useful when there are great things we need God to do in our lives.

Often the value of fasting lies not so much in going hungry as in the fact that, when we stop eating for a time, we remove that distraction from our minds. Our bodies are not investing energy in digesting food in the stomach; instead, our resources, including those of the mind, are focused on the task before us, on the petition we have before God.

Then we are freer to pray, to hear from God, to focus on one thing, and this brings blessing and help to the mission before us. That is one of the benefits of fasting.

That is why it is so important that, when we want God to do something great in our lives, we seek a fitting setting, silence, prayer, and stillness, so that we can concentrate all our faculties on what we are bringing before the Lord, because we have certainly seen that focus is key.

Earlier we spoke about the other woman, the widow who said she cried out to the prophet Elisha, and we spoke about the importance of crying out: how it emphasizes intensity, concentration, and passion when we present our case before the Lord. We spoke about Hannah, who poured out her soul before the Lord.

It is important that, when we conceive of something God wants us to do, we bring that petition to a white heat, present it insistently before the Lord in full detail, and persist until that vision becomes a small but dense and powerful projectile that reaches the very heart of the Lord.

This woman is an example of passion concentrated on a very, very clearly defined purpose, because the magnitude of her need is so great. She is an example to us that, when we want God to do something, we should not let idle conversations and other concerns distract us, but should concentrate on one thing. If our service to the Lord is to be useful, it must be focused; we must remove every distraction from our lives.

And time and again this woman sets aside every distraction: her husband, who is a superficial man; the idea of stopping along the way for side conversations; stopping to speak with Gehazi. She wants to go straight to where the prophet is. It is very important to cultivate that sense of passion, concentration, and dedication in the matters of our spiritual lives. God bless you; until our next message.