Proverbs 4:25 - Life with Flotsam and Jetsam

It's kind of embarrassing to lose your train of thought while you're talking to God. 

My wife once confided in a friend that she had a difficult time concentrating in prayer. Too many irrelevant things would pop into her mind and then her thoughts would drift. The friend told my wife to treat them like flotsam and jetsam. The phrase means more than odds and ends, though.

Technically, flotsam is debris that floats in the water after a shipwreck or accident. Jetsam was deliberately jettisoned overboard, sometimes with a legitimate reason like lightening a boat in danger of sinking. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/flotsam-jetsam.html

When a ship passes by flotsam and jetsam, they don't stop to examine garbage. They stay on course toward their destination.

Of course this applies to more than prayer. It is relevant to our tasks at work. When I work at home there are always distractions of household chores to do. Or a snack awaiting me in the kitchen. I'd never get much done if all I did was pursue flotsam and jetsam all day.

Flotsam and jetsam can sour relationships. Little quirks and peccadilloes are annoying, but not really worth pursuing.

Life in general has unimportant events that --unless we ignore them-- can get us off course from what God has called us to do with our lives.

A few years ago we were returning from Yellowstone National Park and stopped at Buffalo Bill Dam in Cody, Wyoming. As you looked down at the river from an observation point above the dam, you couldn't actually see any water. The water was covered with a mat of flotsam and jetsam--mostly driftwood, actually. That's what happens when it is allowed to accumulate.

God, give us the courage and discipline to not stop for flotsam and jetsam, and certainly not to collect it. If it ever does accumulate, please remove it so the pure water of Your word can flow freely in our lives. (Ephesians 5:26). Help us to "Look straight ahead, and fix our eyes on what lies before us." (Proverbs 4:25, New Living Translation, 2015) In Jesus' name, Amen.