DON’T GET IMMERSED

Saturday: November 28, 2020

Luke 21:34 Be careful not to let yourselves become occupied with too much feasting and drinking and with the worries of this life, or that Day may suddenly catch you

There is a psychology experiment involving a group of people passing a basket ball round a room and viewers are asked to keep track of the total number of times the ball changes hands. At the end of the video however, they are not asked about the objective of the experiment, but rather ‘if they noticed a gorilla pass on the screen’. About half the audience almost always miss the gorilla on set because they are too busy counting the passes.

We often set our singular attention on the tasks we are required to do- those in our peripheral vision do not get as much attention. Thus in today’s text, we are warned to be careful not to get too immersed in merry making or worrying since that could push the major things requiring our foremost attention, into the peripheries of our visual field.

Beloved, there are things that are may appear important and also do require a degree of effort to keep track of. Such things have the potential to keep us occupied entirely and distract us from many other things. For some, the pursuit of success clouds their judgement to morals, for others the search for a perfect family life results in a decline to other dimensions of their life and so forth.

We live in a time when the things that actually matter are not always at the top of the world he pile and so if we do not intentionally decide to look, we will miss out on a lot of them. Let’s conclude with an alternative wording for today’s text:

"But take heed to yourselves and be on your guard, lest your hearts be overburdened and depressed (weighed down) with the giddiness and headache and nausea of self-indulgence, drunkenness, and worldly worries and cares pertaining to [the business of] this life, and [lest] that day come upon you suddenly like a trap or a noose;"

#sly