Selective blindness

by Charles Bertelsmeier

Click here to download your printable verse to carry with you today.

If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father (John 15:24).

Read John 15:18–27

Have you ever watched an illusionist and wondered how they did their tricks? Speaking generally, what the illusionist does is divert your attention to some activity they want you to concentrate on while doing some trickery with their other hand or by their assistant. Because you can only visually concentrate on one thing at a time, you don’t notice the slight activity off to the side. Another aspect of our psychology is that as we switch our visual attention from one object to another some distance away, we don’t see any details of anything between the two objects. Illusionists rely on this, too.

This is related to another truth about our psychology. To understand new information or ideas, we need to fit them into our current frames of reference. Let me give an example. Our current experience is that when we take five loaves of bread, break them into pieces and hand them out to feed people, there will not be enough to feed at least five thousand people, with 12 baskets of leftover scraps. So, when we hear about this happening, we try to fit it into this frame of reference. Which means we think that it didn’t happen as reported. There must have been some sleight of hand or other explanation.

Now, if your frame of reference includes a God who has unlimited power over nature, you don’t have a problem, because this example of the multiplying bread is just a miracle. This implies that the person who performed the miracle is either God himself or acting on God’s behalf.

On the other hand, if someone has embarrassed us and we are very angry with them, when they try to talk to us, we may be so absorbed with trying to justify our anger with anything further they say that we don’t hear the important information they are trying to share with us.

Jesus faced both these situations with the religious leaders of his day. The things Jesus said and did didn’t fit their frame of reference for a religious teacher, and their focus on capturing what he said to use against him prevented them from hearing the good news he wanted to share with them.

Now, we also need to be cautious of people trying to mislead us in our relationship with God, so we must check things against our other frame of reference, the Bible. And the best way to do this is to regularly and prayerfully read the Scriptures.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word, both the written word in the Bible and the Living Word, Jesus. Please help us to be open to where you are leading us in our daily lives, and please protect us from being deceived by those who want to lead us away from you. Amen.

• Click here to read previous devotions.
• We are also posting them on LCA Facebook, making it easy for you to share them with family and friends.
• Sign up to receive Daily Devotion in your inbox every morning. If you’re already doing that, please encourage others to sign up. Click here for the link.