Assignment or Distraction

Hey, what's up? This is Tim Pratt Jr. I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this content today. I hope you hear something that adds value to your life, shaping your perspective, faith, and hope, as well as the application to seeing through on this thing that we call life. Enjoy. What's up? So this is episode 4, and I want to call this one, "Is It an Assignment or a Distraction?" And so the passage of scripture that I'm gonna use today is basically the Good Samaritan. Dealing with Luke 10:25-37. And basically this passage deals with, you know, expert in the law thinking he's going to school Jesus. And he— Jesus, you know, basically it leads you to tell this parable about the Good Samaritan. And basically deals with how a priest and a Levite, you know, passed this man up that was basically beaten, you know, he was robbed, stripped of his clothes. They left him for dead. And a Samaritan basically, you know, observed this and seen it, and he basically chose to help the man, you know, use his resources to attend to the situation. And it ends basically in those, you know, last two verses where Jesus asks the expert in the law, you know, basically who added value, you know, who did the right thing. And the expert in the law says the Good Samaritan. Jesus basically tells him, go and do likewise. And so, like I said, you can read that. That's pretty much just paraphrasing it because I didn't want to read it verse by verse. But take some time to just really go examine it and then, you know, listen to this episode again, or stop and read it, listen to this episode, or however you want to do it. But that's kind of where I want to draw from today. So like I say, this is in this— the title of this episode is, is an assignment or distraction? Now, truthfully, I can't tell you that. Because I believe God allows that area to basically only truly be known through intimate relationship with him. And with me, you know, I'm a faith-based, faith-based person, and this is a faith-based podcast. And so I believe in the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us, you know, and basically modeling our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ when he walked this world in the flesh. And when you look at him, some of his greatest miracles that would have probably seemed like— to us would have seemed like distractions today were interruptions, and they end up being really what you can truly say assignments. And what if interruptions are basically God saying, hey, I'm interrupting your pre-recorded life to basically do my will? Think about that. And so, and I'm gonna close with kind of a personal story, something that recently happened to my dad out at the hospital. To really, you know, bring this home. So a lot of us, man, distractions. We live in a very distracted world. We're very aware of it. And you know, I talked about this in the last episode of The Cost of Distractions. But although, truth be told, every assignment is not our basically problem, if that makes sense, But everything's— everything, every distraction isn't a distraction. And look, I'm freelancing this episode. This is really no notes, uh, I'm not gonna do transitions and none of that. I just want to flow because this, this one has been on my heart. I've like written about it a couple of times as well as just certain statuses around it, but I really wanted to get this message out by the grace of God. So just, just bear with me. And I'm not really going to edit this one like that. I just, like I said, I just want to flow. So in our life, it's almost like with, with me, I'm like, bro, do you have to schedule the Holy Spirit on the calendar? You know, because it's like oftentimes it's like we're missing the opportunity and the space to serve in basically the mundane, those unnoticed ways that really can touch people's lives and allow us to be the hands and feet of Christ. And when you read throughout the Gospels, like I just said, with Christ— okay, prime example, the woman with the issue of blood. He wasn't on— Jesus was not on his way to her. He was actually on his way to Jairus's house. Or you look at the time when he stopped and, you know, healed the blind man. He was actually on his way outside of Jericho. And in today's time, you know, we probably would have said, hold on, wait a minute, That's a distraction. That's probably what the first two thought, the priest and Levite, like, wow, that looks like a distraction, let me keep going. But the Samaritan, like I say, chose to use his resources and attend to the situation and help. And we should be living such a spirit-filled life and, you know, not so distracted, distracted to the point we can't even acknowledge people's humanity. It doesn't even seem like they did that. I mean, it doesn't leave record that they did. But like the Samaritan, he stopped. And you know, and that's one thing that really drives me in basically the, the body of Christ, if I may say, or you know, so-called church people or Christians, whatever you want to use, is that oftentimes, you know, our greatest cop-out is like, well, I'll pray for the person. And a lot of times we only result to prayer and we can't actually do things is because we don't have margin. Margin in our finances, margin in our time. We just go, go, go, or we just spend up to our knees, you know, just, just all of this type of stuff. And so it's like, okay, I'm not going to be a good steward over what God has entrusted me with. But I want to be the hands and feet of Christ. That's like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree. And I mean, with our lives, man, it's like we go back and so we start saying, well, I know someone— it's like me not knowing a young man that maybe needs a coat and some shoes. And I'm not saying I got to go out and buy him Jordans and North Face jackets and stuff like that, but saying, okay man, I can, you know, really help this guy. He needs some tangible things. He don't need me just to pray right now. He needs a tangible blessing. Like, right now I need to be the miracle that God has called me to be for his life. Be the blessing. And that's a whole nother episode I want to get into about this #BlessedLife to really understand that concept, but we'll get into that later. But we We can be the miracle by God working through us because he's not coming down. Jesus is not coming down out of heaven to do what he's instructed us to do. And so we have to stop hiding behind prayer. We have to put ourselves in situations. Like I say, the Samaritan used his resources. What do your resources look like? Do you even have resources? I mean, you know, these are things that we really have to think about. Because it's like we pray, pray, pray, but we don't really do any action. This is not everybody. I mean, Michael Todd Church, you know, just— I just seen an article that they did $1.2 million, you know, in blessing people, like in all type of different type of things. I seen Relentless Church, John Gray, in addition, like I said, to Transformation Church, where they had a, um, a service that I watched I believe— which, what was it— We Are a Generous Church. And just people just started giving throughout the ministry, giving people jobs and engagement rings and money and shoes and all this type of stuff. And it's many more small local churches I've seen, but I've also seen a lot of local churches just chicken dinner after chicken dinner, just raising money after raising money and stuff like this. And it's like building fund, building fund, but nothing is going into the community and really touching and making impact. We doing the same programs over and over and over, like programs over people when it should be people over program. And like I said, this just really drives me. But to bring everything back home, all I'm saying is basically what some people may see as an interruption, what if God said it's actually an assignment? And it leads me to basically my main point is with my dad. He was at the hospital, you know, with my grandmother. She was having some things going on., and my dad was out there, I think, with my uncle, uh, one of my uncle Charlie or something like that. And this lady, you know, she ended up putting a status, and thank God my dad and they were able to go to the funeral. And just like, I'm not really trying to make this a black or white thing at all, but, uh, I want to because it's going to like bring the context of this, this story home. So it was a white lady, her mom had just died.. And you know, she had put up this long status because of how she was feeling, and she was saying how my dad, you know, he had prayed this prayer and you just felt the presence of God. And you know, she has like, love has no color, and how she was able to witness that and be quickened. And so then she turned— she, like I said, she wrote the status and then she reached out to my parents. And then, you know, like all these type of people, and it just, it's leading to like opportunities, although My dad, you know, I know he wasn't looking for that. He just was being obedient. But as we was talking, he was just saying like, you know, son, I got so much on my plate, just so much, man. It's go, go, go. And then, you know, it's just like we were talking, it's like the spirit was like, you know, what if this was an assignment? Who told you it was distractions? And so I started to learn about life, that it's really all about how you look at things. Because I don't really want to get into the latter part of it But it led to something that is basically— has the potential to truly be powerful. And this came, what I'm learning in my life, as an act of obedience and fulfilling the assignment in that appointed time that God had for my dad and this woman. And then it touched so many other lives from her status, and it just shared over and over and over. And at the end of the day, who got the glory? It's not my dad, it's not the woman, it's God. And so in our lives, man, you know, like I said, are you jammed so packed in this hustle mode and grind team, no distractions? But having that team no distraction mindset might be robbing you of a, a certain assignment that God has for you. And then, like I said, yes, truth be told, some things are distractions because you aren't assigned to every situation. God works through all of us, all of his people. And so once again, but that comes through having an intimate relationship for— with him. I can't give you that answer because if I could, then I will be taking the place of the Holy Spirit of God, and that's just not happening. And so those are just, like I say, some things to really think about, you know. Do you pray too much? Not literally. I'm not— I don't mean this literally, but prayer should not be used to basically excuse us from doing the work, the necessary work, the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. So slow down, man. Like, embrace being in that, just that, that secret place, that certain place with him, so he can speak to you. And I mean, when you slow down, truthfully, distraction is going to slow down. And I believe we will move more calculated. And I mean, like, calculated in the terms of, like, the Lord say, okay, this is your assignment, you have everything you need, you have been equipped. So go accomplish it, accomplish it. And then once you accomplish that assignment, you move up into different dimensions. But a lot of times we are just— honestly, we're just so governed by being busy, or we're so governed by, like I say, team no sleep, team hustle. And I'm not knocking the hustle, and this is not an excuse to like slow down and just be lazy, because Jesus was not lazy. This Samaritan was not lazy, but they were sensitive and they were obedient to the will of God. And that's what it comes down to. So I don't want anybody to take this out of context and say, well, man, look like I just need to chill until I find an opportunity to serve. That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is being tandem, it should be a tandem relationship with the Holy Spirit and just so sensitive. He say go left, go left. He say go right, go right. And then, like I said, the biggest thing out of all, so you can add some value, is stewardship. Get out of debt or minimize it, man, so you can fulfill more assignments and stop being what I like to call self-sabotaging distractions. I mean, like working 3, 4 jobs, man, just to just be out here doing nothing. Like, and I'm not knocking people, trust me. Like, if I had to work 2, 3 jobs to make ends meet, that's different. But is it— I guess you have to ask yourself, am I doing this because I'm trying to get— like, I am trying to get to this place where I can, you know, be more like this? Okay, I understand that. It's kind of like the Dave Ramsey plan, you know, get out of debt, go be a delivery driver on top of what you're doing, and gazelle intensity. Okay, I get that in certain seasons, but when this basically— this season becomes years and it feels like, you know, 5, 6 years where it's like a way of life, you have an issue. And so are you basically caught up in that because you're trying to keep up with the Joneses? And so now your distraction is, I need more money, or your distraction is, you know, I just, I gotta grind more. And you become a slave to distractions and time management. And so I don't, like I say, want to prolong, but I just, I just wanted to freestyle because this has really been on my heart because everything isn't a distraction, man. Some things are just being in tandem and it's God saying, okay, I'm— it— I'm interrupting your pre-recorded life in order for you to do my will. And so with that being said, man, I really hope this episode has touched you or just basically changed your perspective or just even thought about those two words, assignment and distraction, in a new perspective where you become more sensitive to say, okay, what, what is it really, you know? And if you, if you're having a hard time, okay, I need to be at the feet of God. I need to be in my prayer closet. I need to get in my scriptures and really develop and cultivate my relationship with him so I can truly know. And just go from there. And like I tell you, you know, as you— the closing will pick up after this episode If you just want to talk, man, you can go book a— like, you can go to my website, you know, set up an appointment. I don't charge for basically like just— I, I say spiritual talks, but, um, I don't talk— I don't charge like for that. I mean, whatever you want to call them, just relationship building. I'm not so much hung up on the title and If it's confidential, like, let's keep it confidential. And if I can't help, man, I have, you know, people that I trust, like, you know, uh, Ax, you know, Pastor Stewart up here in the Conway and Little Rock area, uh, Pastor Alfred and Roz, uh, Warren. Um, I like— I love them. I don't really like these people, like, I don't really know that good on a, a just carnal level, but by the spirit, I know them. You know, once again, my dad, you know, my father in love, Pastor Alain Allen in Stuttgart. You know, my dad's in Palm Bluff, you know, and just many others, man. Just get connected. And like I say, you know, and I know it seems like I'm going tangent, but I have to be obedient as I close out this episode. If you ever want to talk and just hit me up, like I say, this is a full transparency because this podcast, you know, the blogging and just the way I see ministry Um, I love being in the trenches, man. I'm not this person, and there's nothing wrong with teaching from the pulpit and preaching the gospel. I mean, you know what I'm saying, we all have different assignments in life, but I love being in the trenches. And so I just pray that this episode touches you, you know, and it just gives you the peace of mind, helps— help gives you the peace of mind, or like I say, just challenge— have challenged you and has challenged you in a way that you'll say, you know, man, I really need to kind of slow down and just allow God to really speak to me and determine, you know, where I'm supposed to be in life, who am I assigned to, am I missing out on things, am I missing out on carrying out my Lord's will, and so on and so on. So y'all be blessed, man, and just share, share, share, keep putting this content out, and And like I say, please reach out if there's anything I can do, and if I can do it by the grace of God, you know, I'm here. So y'all be blessed, man, and take care. Hey, thank you so much for listening to this content today. I want to encourage you, if you haven't already, to subscribe to it and share it with family and friends on your social media feeds. And you can also go over to www.timothyprattjr.org in order to find out more about the blog as well as other things that I offer. On how to connect with me. So with that being said, I hope you have a blessed day and continue to see this thing through that we call life.