Let's put aside our worries and focus on...

It's a recurrent problem for those who lead Bible study groups and church services. People arrive with their heads full of stuff: their personal problems; a crisis with a friend; money worries; the pressures of a hard day at work; frustrations with children; the long-term problems that are a constant weight to our souls.

It's not uncommon for someone to say, or the leader to pray something like this:

Lord, help us to put aside the distractions of today, so that we can focus on you...

It sounds like it should be the right thing to do. After all, distractions are … well … distracting! And aren't we at church or homegroup to focus on God's Word and worship him? Sounds like the right thing to do, until you read the psalms and understand the lives God wants us to lead. The book of Psalms is not just a personal prayer book for our private moments - but a songbook for people to sing aloud as we approach the Lord. Take these examples of typical songs on the hymn sheet at the temple:

• My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long: "where is your God?" Psalm 42 v 3
• O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? Psalm 88 v 14
• I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Psalm 73 v 3

Real life, distractions, problems, anxiety were not excluded from the temple - they were the very place to bring them - so that an encounter with the Living God through his word could put them in perspective and transform them.

This is the at the very heart of the Gospel - and is the opposite of religion. Christianity is not a place to escape from our troubles, a sweet thought that gives us respite from our pain for a moment. The Lord calls us to bring the reality of our lives to his Word - however painful that might be. Our prayer should rather be:

...let us bring the distractions and things that are worrying us into study so we can apply God's word to them, bear one another's burdens and bring them to our loving sovereign Father in prayer.