Another big distraction is anxiety. Anxiety is like a little demon always bothering us. Who could live even one day without any kind of anxiety? Very often wives are anxious concerning their husbands. From the day of her engagement a wife may begin to be anxious about whether her husband will be faithful to her or not. Once this anxiety enters into her, it will never leave her. After marriage, a husband and wife may have some children. From the first day their little child is born, they may be anxious whether this child will breathe well, sleep well, and eat well. The parents are anxious for their children from the time of their birth to the time they themselves have children. They are anxious to see whether their children will read well, study well, get the best grades, and graduate from the best university. Then they become anxious concerning their children's marriages. After the children's marriages they are anxious concerning the grandchildren. This human life is full of anxiety, and this anxiety keeps us away from Christ.
In Philippians, a book on enjoying Christ, Paul tells us, "Be anxious for nothing" (4:6). That means we should not worry about anything. But we all have some worries. Sometimes when we do not have much anxiety today, we borrow the anxiety of tomorrow. Very often we borrow anxiety from tomorrow. Tomorrow has not yet come, yet we borrow tomorrow's anxiety. We human beings are just people of anxiety. But once you have anxiety, you are cut off from Christ. It is not easy to get rid of anxiety. The best way to get rid of anxiety is to tell your need to God (Phil. 4:6). Do not worry for anything, but rather unload your care (1 Pet. 5:7). You need to charge your anxiety to God. To say this is easy, but to practice not having anxiety is very difficult.
Besides anxiety, another distraction is murmuring (Phil. 2:14). Every married person has murmured about his husband or wife at some time. Even in the church life there may be some murmuring. The brothers may murmur about the elders, and the sisters may murmur about the brothers. The young ones may murmur about the older ones, and the older ones may murmur about the young ones. Anxiety and murmuring are two things that so easily keep us away from Christ. Philippians is a book on the experience of Christ. This experience is quite often frustrated by these two things, anxiety and murmuring. Hence, the Apostle Paul exhorts us concerning both.
Anger and any kind of agitation also cut us off from the experience of Christ (Eph. 4:26, 31). We all are too easily agitated. Sometimes just a little word will agitate us. Both the young people and the older ones are very easily agitated. But any time you are agitated by anything or by anyone, you are distracted from Christ.
Anger is an issue of agitation. Although it cannot be considered as sin, it surely distracts us from experiencing Christ in our daily life. Therefore, the Apostle exhorts us not to remain in anger to the point where it becomes sin (Eph. 4:26).