If you haven’t read my most recent blog post, The Kingdom Is Within You, I’d encourage you to start there. This post is a direct follow-up to that one.
I thought I was just going to clean up my schedule.
I started tracking my time a few weeks ago because I wanted to eliminate distractions and live my life more aligned with what God wants my life to look like. Simple, right?
Except it has not been simple at all.
The first week, was a breeze. Track my time, make only the changes that need immediate attention.
But then I sat down with God to look at it. I gave Him permission to show me what He wanted my life to look like, where He wanted me to bring my life into alignment with His purposes and plan. I told Him I didn’t want to just tighten up my schedule, I wanted to cultivate a life of relationship with Him, a life that glorified and honored Him, and because that was my desire, I didn’t want to look at everything I had tracked from a purely natural perspective. I wanted Him to show me where the distractions were and what He wanted to change.
And He responded. Because when you eliminate distraction, you make space. And in that space, if you ask Him to, God shows up. And when God shows up, He brings life, healing, and freedom – and to do that, sometimes things come up that need to be addressed.
For me, it was walls.
The Walls I Didn’t Know I’d Built
I spent much of yesterday morning in tears and repentance before God. I was completely overwhelmed by the realization that I had closed off much of my life—to both God and other people.
I didn’t do it on purpose. It was gradual.
Initially, it was necessary. I was healing from COVID and long COVID, and I didn’t have a choice. Isolation wasn’t optional—it was survival.
But over time, that place of isolation became my comfort zone. And the comfort zone became a wall.
I didn’t realize how much I’d retreated until yesterday evening, when I sat down with a friend I haven’t seen in six years. She knows me well. And as we were catching up, I mentioned something I’d been thinking about for a while:
“I know a lot of people at my church. But not a lot of people know me.”
I’d written it off to the season. I’m pouring into other people right now. That’s okay.
But as I was sharing, I realized: The reason not a lot of people know me isn’t because I’m pouring out. It’s because I’ve built a wall.
The wall of isolation and self-protection has kept me from opening up. From being vulnerable. From letting people in.
And sitting there, face-to-face with my friend, I realized something even deeper:
I’ve grown afraid of letting people know me.
Not because I’m afraid of accountability. But because I’m afraid to lose them.
Not that they would pass away. But that I would move, or they would move, and the relationship would have to change. And then I’d have to start over…again.
The isolation had given me an excuse to build a defense mechanism—to keep myself from that hurt.
And I didn’t even know I’d done it.
The Connection I Didn’t See
I didn’t see the connection between what God told me on Sunday (“I want you to live with your life wide open and your heart wide open”) and my repentance yesterday morning—until I was sitting there talking to my friend.
It rocked me.
I’m still a little wrecked today, if I’m honest.
And I’m finding I need to be careful. Because it’s so easy to say, “Oh no, look at all this time I’ve wasted,” and get stuck looking at something I can’t change.
But that’s not where God is calling me.
He’s calling me to repent, trust Him to redeem the time (because Scripture says He goes behind us to keep us from the harm of our past—and I believe that also means from the things we missed), and move forward—doing exactly what He’s asked me to do:
Open my heart.
Open my life.
Show up for other people.
Let myself be known.
The Old Fear Rising Up
Even as I’m writing this, an old fear is rising up:
“You’re too much. Your story is too much. No one could love you if they actually knew you. It’s safer to stay isolated and pour out the little bit you can without opening up.”
I didn’t even realize—until that conversation last night and this morning as I’ve been exploring it with God—that this thought was still there. Anchoring me in isolation, distraction, and relative disengagement as a comfort zone.
“I Just Want Jesus to Be Known”
You know, sometimes we say, “I don’t want to be known. I just want Jesus to be known.”
And that sounds super spiritual.
But it’s not Kingdom.
It provides an excuse to hide. To not be discipled. To not show up. To not have accountability. To not engage in relationships.
The truth is: If Jesus is going to be known through our lives, then our lives have to be visible.
Who we are and how we live has to be seen—or He won’t be.
This isn’t about trying to get attention. It’s not about being puffed up in pride or getting stuck in the idea that “this is just how I am, deal with it.”
It’s about recognizing that Jesus shows up in and through me—and in and through the life I’m living.
He shows up in my story (my testimony), in how I work, how I live, how I relate to others.
And that’s how He wants it.
If you don’t know me, you can’t see Jesus through me in the way He desires you to.
I’m not saying every person has to know everything about us to see Jesus. That’s not the point.
But Jesus said, “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father” (John 14:9).
Every encounter with Jesus was an experience with the Father—because they were one, and because Jesus lived His life in perfect alignment with the words and will of the Father.
We’re called to develop the same kind of life with Him. To live so aligned with Jesus that when someone sees us, they see Him—whether they recognize it or not.
Obviously, we’re learning and growing. There are going to be things in our lives that don’t reflect Him well (or at all). But we’re learning to live, move, and have our being in Him. And the goal isn’t perfection—it’s that every day, we’re becoming more and more like Him, so that this reality becomes increasingly true of our lives.
The Real Point
Boy, I digressed fast.
The whole point of all these words is this:
I’ve been telling myself for months that the reason I have a bunch of people I know and love—but who don’t really know me well—is that this is a season of pouring out.
When the reality is: I simply have not been letting people in.
The same walls keeping the river from flowing freely through me have separated me from vulnerable and authentic relationship with others.
That might not sound like a big deal.
But it also means that every point at which I’ve been “pouring in” without letting people in has been a place where I’ve withheld something of the heart of God, the power of God, and the Kingdom of God that they may have needed.
Something that was within me that couldn’t flow—because of walls I didn’t even realize I had.
Not Shame, But Invitation
Again, this is not a shame-inducing realization.
It’s an invitation.
An invitation to repent and lean heavily on the Spirit to learn afresh how to live with my heart and my life wide open.
To allow His perfect love to cast out all fear. (1John 4:18)
To cultivate the realization that because His opinion of me is the most important one, I can entrust my heart to God while living wholeheartedly in relationship with other people without fear.
Part of the invitation to live my life wide open and let the Kingdom of God flow freely is the invitation to be known—regardless of how I’m received. Again, this is not, “This is just who I am, deal with it.” It’s about remembering that people will make assumptions, and judgements and decisions and my responsibility is to show up with the love and heart of God to the best of my ability and not let those perceptions sway my commitment to joyfully responding to my King.
Let’s get back to distraction, and the connection. I think part of the reason I’ve been so readily distracted is:
- I’ve been bored—not from a time perspective, because I’ve been very busy. But bored in the sense of missing vital human connection and meaningful relationship.
- I’ve been trying to create a sense of purpose and activity without the cost of actual engagement.
Two Invitations
In recognizing this, I also recognize that there are two invitations in front of me right now:
First: Focus on the Distraction
I can focus on the distraction and disengagement and allow that to dishearten me and immobilize me.
I can repent and remain unchanged if I stay focused here. I can stay in the tension but not allow it to do what it was created to do and move me toward a different outcome.
Second: Turn to God
Or I can turn my focus to God and ask Him for a fresh touch—for His strength, His wisdom, His grace to follow through on the repentance and refuse to go back to what I’ve declared I want to walk away from.
This invitation is an invitation to relationship, freedom, and transformation. The walking out of that invitation, if done in responsiveness to the leading of the Spirit will lead to greater intimacy (with God and those He’s brought into my life) and increasing spiritual maturity.
It’s the invitation to not just talk about living undistracted and throwing the floodgates of my heart and life wide open—but to actually do it.
Not on my own. Not in my own strength. Because that’s just not possible.
But with Him and in His strength.
What I Want You to Know
Why am I sharing this?
First, I told you I’d share the process and this is part of my integrity in keeping that promise.
But mostly because if you’re thinking about starting your own Undistracted Life journey—tracking your time, making space for God, eliminating distraction—I want you to know something:
This isn’t just about time management. It’s about transformation.
When you eliminate distraction, uncomfortable things may come up. Things you’ve been numbing, avoiding, hiding from.
Distraction isn’t just a bad habit. It’s often a coping mechanism—a way to create the illusion of life without the costly vulnerability and discomfort that comes with real engagement, and dealing with things the Holy Spirit would like to address.
So, as you go through this process, don’t be surprised when things surface.
Old fears. Hidden walls. Patterns you didn’t realize were there.
This is normal. This is good. This is God. And don’t worry, He knew they were there, so the process is not providing Him with new information, it’s creating awareness in you.
He’s not bringing it up to shame you. He’s bringing it up to heal you, transform you, set you free.
Your job is to say YES. To lean into the discomfort and tension. To trust Him to walk you through it.
So if this is a journey you want to start, you may want to ask yourself:
Am I all in? Am I willing to trust that God has a plan in this and will walk with me no matter what comes up?
Because odds are good something WILL come up.
And that’s okay. That’s actually the point.
But here’s what I want you to remember:
Going through the discomfort and tension—saying yes to God, repenting when you need to, aligning with the Kingdom even when it costs you—is worth it.
Because being distracted is costing you more, and I’ll write about that in my next post.
I encourage you: Choose transformation. Choose presence. Choose to be known.
Not because it’s easy. But because it’s the only way to live wide open. 🔥
Are you ready to start your own journey to an Undistracted Life? Click here to get the FREE UNDISTRACTED Quick Start Guide. This Guide will be updated as I go through the journey myself (in fact, I’ll be making updates today) so it is only going to increase in value as I continue going through it.
