Last week I shared briefly about how I lost two windows out of my Excursion. I really didn’t explain how it happened. It happened because of user error.
I was at the ball field coaching our son’s ball team last Saturday. The first thought in many minds at this point of the story is, “Oh no, was it a foul ball?” I would love to blame it on a ball but, nope it wasn’t a foul ball. Practice had just ended and we loaded up to head back home. Austin asked me if he could roll the window down and I told him no because we would be home in a few minutes, let’s just get home. I started backing up and was stopped by a sudden stretching noise. I looked over towards the noise and realized I had backed up too close to a speed limit sign that I was parked too close too. So I pulled forward and that’s when it all happened. As I pulled forward I heard two distinct loud bangs, BOOM… BOOM. The sign popped my windows out as I was too close to it.
Austin got his windows rolled down.
Now I could blame several things here. I could blame the fact that I pulled out crooked to allow Butch Laidler room to pull out. I could blame the heat because it was just too hot to think. I could blame the kids for being in a hurry. I could blame the truck for being too darn big. And I suppose I could even blame the sign for being too darn small.
The fact remains, I did it because I was not paying attention. It was 100% my fault. But it got me thinking about a few things and I now realize that God allowed this to happen so I could share a valuable lesson with us.
The importance of Paying Attention is more valuable than many of us realize. Last Saturday, I was not paying attention and it ended up costing me. In life when we don’t pay attention to certain things it ends up costing us also.
We must be alert; we must pay attention to many things in life. When driving we must pay attention to what we are doing or else we’ll get a ticket, get in a wreck, or even miss our turn. We need to pay attention to our gages or we’ll run out of gas, oil, or could even over heat.
Spiritually speaking we too can get in serious trouble if we do not pay attention.
1 Peter 5:8 tells us to be sober and alert, because the enemy prowls around like a lion seeking someone to eat.
This clip we are about to see illustrates how some of us can be distracted and loose our alertness.
Video: “Be Prepared”
- Stay alert or you may end up down for the count.
We must always pay attention to what we’re doing. We need to realize that we are not alone in this world, that Satan is sitting back waiting for us to lose our focus.
Many times in life we find ourselves in situations that could be devastating depending on how we react to them.
For me, I reacted poorly with my accident. I chose to pull forward out of an automatic reaction and it cost me dearly. I can’t tell you how many times I have played my incident over and over again in my mind.
I should have stopped and thought about what to do. I should have gotten out of the Excursion and assessed the situation. I should have but didn’t.
I wonder how many times in life we choose poorly and react out of panic or don’t react at all because we simply are not paying attention to what is going on around us.
How many times in your life have you found yourself in a bad situation simply because of one wrong choice in which you were not thinking clearly? Making one wrong choice in life can be devastating like a domino effect.
It could be something small that we don’t even think much of at the time but can turn into something huge that can ultimately tear apart our lives and those around us.
White lies can darken our lives through time; un-forgiveness can lead to broken marriages and a moment of personal pleasure can create a world of despair.
Take a look at King David. In 2 Samuel 11 he makes a bad choice that just kept getting worse.
2 Samuel 11 2-5 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah(I) the Hittite.” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
Some would say that David was paying too much attention; I say he wasn’t paying enough attention to what was right in God’s eyes.
Reading on through chapter 11 we read that David tried to cover it up by trying to get her husband, Uriah, who was off fighting in the war to come home, hoping that he would come home and sleep with Bathsheba and would think that the child was his.
But Uriah refused; he felt his place was with his troops, fighting alongside them. So David ordered Uriah on the front lines, knowing that Uriah more than likely would be killed in battle. And sure enough he did. So David took Bathsheba as his wife.
But check the last two verses out in chapter 11.
1 Samuel 26-27. When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him. After the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.
David had displeased the Lord! He displeased the Lord because of his own selfish desires, because he paid more attention on him rather than God. He reacted without thinking and was definitely not focused on God.
David allowed Satan to work in his life because his life wasn’t in the will of God. He wasn’t paying attention to his spiritual life.
Peter tells us to be alert because the enemy prowls around us. Satan has us in is targets and is alert and ready to devour us. We need to be alert as well, knowing that Satan is among us, we cannot take our focus off of God but so, so many times in our lives we do.
As you know, we are honoring Dakota Huckabee today after our worship service with a Send –Off Pot – Luck. Dakota leaves Kansas on the 5th of June and will be attending Basic Training at Fort Jackson, SC.
Dakota, the army will teach you and always taught us the motto, “STAY ALERT, STAY ALIVE”. Learn it, breath it, know it and live it. Great motto for a soldier and a great motto for life.
You are about to embark on a journey within your life. Of course you realize the obvious; a good amount of P.T. and a lot of yelling is coming. But one thing I want you to realize is that you must be on alert and you need to pay attention.
Many things will be thrown your way to shake your faith and to take you attention off of Jesus. It may be small little occurrences that whispers in your ear that it’s okay to curse here and there because everybody else does it or it could be simple things like skipping chapel services or not praying or reading the Scriptures because the cool guys don’t do it.
Dakota, pay less attention to self and more attention on God. The best advice I can give to you is allow the time you spend at Fort Jackson to be a time of Spiritual growth. Pay very close attention to Jesus during your time there and I promise He will not steer you wrong and you will succeed.
Conclusion:
I want to close this morning with an illustration that I have used in the past but today for Dakota, I feel that it is very fitting to use again.
Illustration: Dakota, picture yourself serving a tour in Iraq. You have been placed on guard duty. Your job is to sit in one of two guard towers; you are to provide security for the south side of your camp.
Your sergeant has given you a shift from 1AM -4AM, not the best shift at all. He tells you the famous Army saying, “Stay Alert, Stay Alive.”
You begin your shift. It’s dark, quiet and you’re getting tired. 2:45 comes rolling around and you can’t take it anymore and you drift off to sleep. The enemy sees you snoozing and slips right on pass you and attacks the south side of your camp and overtakes you and your unit. The enemy sees victory all because you weren't paying attention.
This much like what happens to us Christians when we drift off to sleep spiritually. We live in a world full of darkness and it is so very easy for us to lose our attention and fall asleep.
We get comfortable when things are nice and smooth, when we have no problems in our life. We allow our priorities and focus to come off of Jesus and we compromise in various areas of our daily lives.
You know what I’m talking about. Every time you laugh at someone’s vulgar jokes, Every time you use profane language because you are in a certain situation with someone else that thinks nothing of it, Every time you conform to this world and make those poor ungodly decisions you are falling asleep spiritually. Your attention is not on God but on yourself and the things of the worldl.
Isn’t this true for us all? We live in a world full of temptations and curve balls don’t we? We must be alert, we must pay attention or we may find ourselves allowing the enemy to over throw our very lives.
Let’s pay attention spiritually and let’s stop making excuses for what we know we need to do.
-“I’m not going to church today because I was up too late”
-“I didn’t pray because God knows how I feel anyway”
-“I just don’t have time to read or meditate on the Scripture today because we have so much going on, after all it’s a nice day and God wants me to enjoy it.”
What excuses do you use when you take your attention off of God? Remember the old saying; “You snooze, you lose”. And add this one to your data bank, “Stay alert, stay alive.”
