Luke 10:41-42 “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

A few months ago, one of my email accounts got hacked. Don’t worry, I didn’t lose my identity or anything. In fact, if it wasn’t so annoying, what the hackers did could be considered a Grade A++ Prank! (If it was one of you, though, I’m still not laughing!) The hackers didn’t “Steal” anything that we can find…they just took my email account and signed me up for thirty to forty different “U.S. Government Email Updates”. That means, they made it look like I REALLY wanted to hear about dozens of different Government services (and other non-governmental sites) and how they are working. On a daily basis. Sometimes MANY times a day.

I’ll give you a SHORT list of some of the email blasts I magically started receiving:

• US Customs and Border Protection Media updates (twice daily reports of how many people were stopped at the US/Canada border near Michigan
• National Institute of Health (In English AND Spanish) Sharing information about what they can find in your blood tests, and how they are developing a cognitive implant to encourage mental stimulation in American Indians.
• The IRS (Everyone LOVES getting mail from THEM!) On how they are calculating new milage rates and what depreciation rates mean to small businesses of 500 or less employees
• The National Forestry Service-what types of beetles are affecting trees in Washington and Oregon this year
• AND OF COURSE, the obligatory “1Click Pills Market” to buy legal medicines from India and “Car Warranty Search Engine”…in case, the warranty on my pickup had expired.

 As I said, it’s annoying trying to delete all those emails and unsubscribe, but on another level, it’s actually funny. Someone took my email and pasted it into ALL those emails (and many more) just to flood my account with trash. As I was deleting some of these, it kind of “Don’d” on me that there was a spiritual lesson here too.

How much of the world BOMBARDS our brain with trash and insignificant data, info, and junk? It can be in ads, in media, in work projects, in family needs, in crises, in politics, and many other forms. A great deal of what we process IS important…but how much more is just SPAM? I believe our enemy will do ANYTHING he can to distract us, to over-stimulate us, to get us upset or worried or angry or fretting about things that are NOT eternal…to keep our eyes off of Jesus and the things that DO MATTER!

In what way, has the enemy distracted YOU this week? Is it all that extra work that you seem to be getting from the boss? Is it that pile of bills on the table that never seems to get “Caught up?” Is it your health and those nagging issues that just won’t go away? Much like when Jesus was speaking with Mary & Martha… “She has chosen the GREATER things!”

Take a minute to look at what is FILLING your time and brain space right now: Is it KEEPING you away from the IMPORTANT things? Like Bible study, prayer, time with your children, taking care of your health?? Delete that which is keeping you apart from God’s purpose…and focus on HIS things!

Now if you’ll excuse me…I need to keep deleting emails!
Shalom – Don