Tossed To and Fro

Ephesians 4:11-14 “And His gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.”

In our walk of faith, it happens that we will become curious about things that will be hidden from us. Such things like when will the Lord will return, is that person going to heaven, what is meant by that prophecy, and so on. In the secular society, there is information in plenty enough to keep us confused about every little thing such as what is healthy and what is unhealthy, what is good or what is bad, what is truth and what is a lie, and so much more. There are so many things to keep us distracted from this very moment in our life and allow our minds to wander away from living for the Lord.

I face this temptation of distraction every single day. There are so many things to learn, research, verify, and 99% of them having nothing at all to do with the living for the Lord. I try to limit my exposure, but it is a challenge all the time: another email, another notification in your phone, another breaking news headline, another scroll in the social media app, another rumor of a war, another rumor of a scary disease we’ve never heard of, another thing to keep us from thinking about Christ.

Applications are tracking how often you open their app, websites are tracking how long you are on their pages, and social sites are tracking your engagement. Instead of opening that app five times a day, can we open our Bibles five times a day? Instead of racking up time on websites, how about racking up time on our knees in prayer? Instead of focusing on social engagement for popularity, how frequently are we engaging others about the Gospel of Christ? Let us challenge ourselves to not be tossed to and fro with every doctrine or prophecies that are hidden from us. Let us not be tossed to and fro with the winds of the time or the cunning craftiness of people would wish to draw us away.