This week I am writing a part one and part two of a bigger article so I will not be writing anything over thanksgiving. This is part one:

On my eighteenth birthday my dad and I had to drop my mom's car off at the shop to get the oil changed. For those of you who don't know, I do not know how to get anywhere unless I've personally driven there at least a thousand times, and telling me how to get there is about as effective as teaching a squirrel to fly an airplane. My dad and I had decided it would be a good idea for me to follow him there, as it was half an hour away and I had never been there.

I stared intently at the back of my dad's van for a solid twenty minutes before we ran into a problem. I had been trying to match his pace and stay a normal distance behind him as traffic whizzed and jockeyed for position around us. I had become intimidated by the other cars and lost focus on my dad's car, this allowed a bit too much space to come between us and a car got in front of me, blocking my view of my dad's car.

The next twenty minutes of both me and my dad's life were pretty stressful. He had to switch his focus to getting back to where he could lead me and I had to drive alone, with no direction. Panicky, I looked ahead searching for any sign of him and hoping the cars would move out of the way and let me be close to him again. I eagerly decided that once I saw him again I wouldn't give anything else the chance to come between us.

I was following him. I chose to focus on something else. Distance began to grow between us. Something got in the way of me seeing him clearly. Sound familiar?

Psalm 31:3 says "For You are my rock and my fortress; For Your name's sake You will lead me and guide me..." God wants to lead us. You don't have to look very far into Psalms or Proverbs to see that. The thing is, it is up to us if we are going to follow or not. When I lost focus of my dad's van, it'not because I was focused on anything evil or sinful, I simply was not focused on him. It requires 24/7 intentional focus to follow God closely enough to prevent things from coming between us and Him.

The devil is looking for any area in our lives where are distracted. If our focus is taken off of Him and put on stress, excitement, anger, hurt, or anything else, satan can use that to distract us from God. Once we become more focused on something than we are on God, that thing becomes and idol as it successfully comes between us and God.

What is coming between you and God today? Are you willing to remove it?

I will be diving much more in depth into the scriptures on this subject in part two. Right now it is important to acknowledge what we have allowed to get in the way of us following God.

Part Two:

In part one of my article, I had told a story about me following my dad to a car dealership in Tulsa, when I got distracted and allowed too much distance to come between us. This distance allowed a car to move between me and my dad, blocking him from my view. I have explained that Satan would love for us to be distracted from following out heavenly Father closely so he can place idols us and Him.

When something becomes an idol in our lives, our hesitancy, or even unwillingness to remove that thing, makes it so much harder for us to see God's direction in our lives. This is why 1 John 5:21 says "Dear children, keep away from anything that might take God’s place in your hearts". We become focused on finding this "balance" between God and this idol that we are not listening to where He says to turn. Instead of focusing on moving forward in your relationship with God, you now have to fight a battle to get back to where you were.

Jonah 2:8 is brutally honest about exactly what happens when we choose idols, saying "Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them." The distance we feel in times like this should be enough to make us determined to never let another thing come between us and God. When you take the steps to remove the idols that are blocking your view of Him, don't lose sight of Him again. Relaxing and allowing other things to drift in and out of your focus is such a vulnerable place to be. Hearing our heavenly Father's voice and knowing we are safely following His lead is the absolute best place to be.

1 Corinthians 10:14 Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.