This verse is my reality so often. I am getting better, but there have been so many times I've wasted time or money and emotional and mental power running toward something that was a good thing but it wasn't what God told me to do at the moment.
We have to stay on task.
May I give you an illustration from my own life?
If I have a new problem, I just know a book will give me the answer. And it often does but sometimes I get a new book on a subject that I want to pursue in my life. I will get this book and spend time looking at it and it is just a distraction. One of my dreams is to have a comic strip. That probably sounds silly to some, but there is a comic strip I read daily that makes me chuckle: http://babyblues.com.
And often I think I'm living a comic strip with my three youngest children. Some of the things they say and do are so out there, funny and nonsensical. I should be writing these things down. Well, I got a book on comic strips. Actually I believe I have two. Maybe one day I will have a comic strip but presently it just gets me off course from what I know I am supposed to do.
I have three primary things I must do: pray for the people God has called me to pray for; write the assignments God has given me (which presently includes this blog, my weekly column, a book for a client and a once-a-month writers study sheet); and take care of my son Hawken.
Now, I have of course more to do than that (like care for my other five kids, my husband and the house and the garden and the stuff at church), but my brain power during the day needs to focus on the three tasks at hand: prayer, writing, Hawk.
When I get distracted I get off course.