Do you struggle with your walk with God? You may be too preoccupied. It is crucial to recognize the ways the enemy distracts you from God.
School, work, social events, family affairs, your life is a never-ending to-do list.
You’re not alone.
Distractions are everywhere. If we are not alert, Satan, our enemy, distracts us from God. Nonetheless, it is easy to discern the voice of the enemy—it echoes with lies and deception. We will discuss 9 ways the enemy distracts us from God.
Let’s dive in.
The Danger of Distractions
1 Peter 5:8 tells us “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:”
The Enemy Distracts You to Hinder Your Spiritual Growth
When we lack a personal relationship with God, we grow spiritually weak, which makes us an easy target for the enemy to destroy. With this in mind, we need to strengthen our spiritual life through praying, fasting, and reading our Bible.
Distraction Makes You Lose Your God-Given Purpose
It’s not unusual to search for your God-given purpose. God created each of us with a purpose. But we need to have a personal relationship with Him to discover His purpose for us. A life void of God is meaningless.
Distraction Causes You to Stray
When the enemy distracts you from God, you can’t hear God’s voice. Therefore, it is easy to stray and lose sight of God’s plans for you. Not only do we lose sight of His plans, but we replace them with our own. The first step to fulfilling God’s plan for us is to allow Him to take control.
9 Ways the Enemy Distracts You From God
1. Debt
With consumer debt approaching $14-trillion, debt has become a plague in the American household.
It’s not uncommon for people living with debt to be anxious, stress, and depressed.
Debt can also lead to a slew of financial problems—foreclosing on your home, filing bankruptcy, or living paycheck to paycheck.
Many people normalize their debt, and some can’t imagine life without it. Scripture tells us, the borrower is a slave to the lender (Proverbs 22:7).
God calls us to be good stewards of the resources He provides us—living in debt is a poor use of those resources.
Furthermore, your income does not belong to you when you’re living in debt. It belongs to the lenders. Until you pay off your debt, it is difficult to save money or pay for unexpected expenses.
As a result, we have no choice but to work overtime or additional jobs to pay off our debts. The more hours we spend working, the less time we have to build a relationship with God.
Set up a budget, spending tracker, and debt payoff checklist to help you get on the debt-free path.
2. Work/Career
Society tells us we must climb the ladder to success. Now, there is nothing wrong with excelling at your job.
Where we go wrong is when we become workaholics—allowing our work and career to become our idol. With that said, our 9-5 jobs, businesses, and side hustles should never be a priority over God.
How can we expect to build a relationship with God when we are working 12-16-hour days?
We will often hear the outcries for the abandoned family unit, but not much chatter about our neglected relationship with God.
Remember, it is the enemy’s goal to keep you busy with working and building your dream career, so you won’t have time to follow God. Scripture reminds us to put God first in everything we do (Proverbs 3:6).
3. Materialism
We live in a materialistic, consumer-based society.
With commercials, ads, and billboards everywhere, advertisers are begging you to spend your money on that shiny new toy.
It can compel you to maintain a certain standard of living equivalent to your peers. But if you are not careful, the race to keep up can turn into materialism.
A materialistic person obsesses over physical possessions, believing the only way to true happiness is through possessing more stuff.
A newer model car, upgraded apartment, or an updated wardrobe may feel good at first but can quickly become a financial burden.
The more we chase material possessions, the less we focus on God. Scripture tells us to store up treasures in heaven, not on earth (Matthew 6:19-21). Our possessions should never become our source of happiness; instead, we should be content with what we have and look to God for true happiness.
4. Relationships
From our friends, colleagues, and families—all we want are healthy relationships.
The enemy distracts you with lies, convincing you a relationship is lacking when it is healthy or that a relationship is healthy when it is toxic.
If we’re not mindful, we can turn our relationships into our idols.
We often make the mistake of putting our relationships on a pedestal—demanding a person to act a particular way, or losing ourselves trying to please the other person.
I’ve been there.
I expected my husband to act a certain way and often compared our marriage to others. When he didn’t meet my flawed expectations or the moment we had marital problems, I wanted to throw in the towel. What I didn’t realize was that God was missing from our marriage.
It is easy for the devil to influence a relationship void of God. Therefore, it is crucial to discern your relationships and place God at the center of them.
5. Holidays
Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas—the holidays have become society’s focus.
Society created the holidays, not God. With that said, if the holiday season is a joyous occasion, why are people stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, and depressed?
Think about it.
How are people dragging themselves to family get-togethers for the sake of tradition? Why do they go broke buying gifts? Why do their family cast them out when they tell them they’re not celebrating?
Scripture warns us not to follow the tradition of men (Colossians-2-8). People are too busy planning, shopping, and eating to find the time to spend with God. Satan is cunning; he uses the Holidays to distract and isolate us from God. That is why we must follow the teachings of our Messiah.
6. Social Media
Smartphone in hand, head bowed, fingers scrolling, there is a constant need to look at our social media feeds every 5 minutes.
Social media is new on the scene, but it is an equal distracter.
Social media can ruin your mental and physical health. If you don’t manage it correctly, it can isolate you, make you anxious, and damage your health.
Instead of face-to-face engagements, we rather connect through our screens. Before we know it, we are living vicariously through others or attaching our worth to how many likes and followers we gain.
Not only can social media be detrimental to your health, but it can also destroy your spiritual well-being.
We can spend an unhealthy amount of time scrolling through our social media feeds, but sitting down to read our Bibles or praying is too much of a chore for us.
If you spend more time on social media than studying your Bible, you may need to reevaluate your priorities.
7. Entertainment
We love entertainment—it is one way we fulfill our desire for happiness and comfort.
We receive our entertainment through music, TV shows, movies, video games, sports, and more. It is crucial to know the source of our entertainment.
The Bible calls Satan the prince of the power of the Air (Ephesians 2:2). It is not surprising that he has power and influence in the entertainment industry. He teams up with the world and uses entertainment to trap and draw believers away from God.
Binge-watching mindless TV shows, listening to music with bad language, or spending hours watching sports is not only bad for your health, but it also opens the doors for the devil to enter and break down your hedge of protection.
Therefore, we must be mindful of how we entertain ourselves. We must put on the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18) and guard our eyes, ears, and mind against the evil elements of this world.
8. Religion
Religion should unite believers; instead, the enemy uses it to distract and divide us. If we are always arguing about religion, when do we worship God?
We don’t!
As long as we are distracted by the elements of religion or church, we can’t focus on God, which is precisely what the enemy wants.
For example, we can get preoccupied with debating the Sabbath day, what foods to eat, or what clothing is appropriate that we lose sight of our walk with God.
Many believers desire spiritual connection, but no longer relate to religion, which is one of the reasons believers turn to the New Age Religion.
But one of the major pitfalls of the New Age movement is it focuses more on self and not God.
Scripture warns us, in the latter days, some will depart from the faith (1 Timothy 4: 1).
Therefore, we shouldn’t allow the rules of the church or religion to hinder our relationship with God or our walk with Yeshua. The church is within us, not in a system or building. And yes, you can serve God without being religious.
9. Self
The person looking back at us in the mirror is one of our biggest distractions from God.
It may seem like society has become more self-centered, especially with the rise of social media, but we’ve always lived in a self-absorbed world.
From the moment Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they gained personal knowledge of good and evil and the spirit of self-centeredness.
As a result, we inherited the same self-absorbed nature, which is why our flesh and spirit are always at odds.
Even more, the enemy deceives us and makes us believe we can trust our feelings, perceptions, and limited knowledge.
Scripture tells us, our heart is deceitful and warns against trusting it (Jeremiah 17:9). To gain knowledge and satisfy our desires, we put God on the back burner and place our affections at the center.
Indeed, temptations will always be around the corner; we can’t escape it. To fight our sinful nature, we must first die to ourselves and give the Holy Spirit control.
Final Note
The enemy will do everything in his power to distract you; stay focused and cling to the Lord.
