I was having a great conversation with someone earlier this week, and the Lord dropped a thought in my heart. He said, “there’s a difference between an opportunity and a distraction.” That difference is based on knowing who you are.

Distractions look alike like opportunities. They can even keep us occupied tending to them which can give off the appearance that we are busy, and our calendar is booked, but we are distracted. Distractions throw us off course from our original purpose and assignment from God. They feel and sound good but don’t agree with God’s identity for our lives.
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The first place to identify whether it’s an opportunity or a distraction is to be solid in our God-given identity. We must know our lane. From there, we can allow Holy Spirit to navigate us. This is not to say that every invitation we don’t agree with is evil. It just simply means that it’s not always our grace to operate in. We must be humble enough to admit when someone else is a better fit for the invitation instead of operating in pride, making something be what it is not.  

We love answering people’s problems. We love having right words to say. We love helping people figure things out. We don’t know how to handle moments when we don’t have the answers.

There will be a time, if you haven’t already experienced it, that you will not have the right words to say or any at all. You won’t know how to help. You won’t know what to do.

When you experience this, that is not the time to conjure anything up or try to make something happen. That is not the moment you try to give an answer to prove you know something. That is the time to remain still, to simply listen, to just be present, to simply not do anything not led by Holy Spirit.

Honestly, when things happen, we can say and do some irrational things when our ego leads us. Our ego can even lead us to think that we’re not doing anything just because we can’t help solve the issue the way WE want to.
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A sobering truth is though sometimes we act like we are, we’re not God. We don’t have all the answers, and we never will. We can’t solve every problem. There would be no need for faith if we could. Lean on the One who knows everything and knows how to solve everything.