“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.” - Daniel Kahneman
This is the eighteenth, of a hopefully weekly series, that explores faith, religion, and Christianity. The idea is to share with you my faith, issues I am working on, and to promote discussion.
What Daniel Kahneman put so succinctly has since been referred to as “the focusing illusion”.
As for its importance, I will get to that shortly.
But first I want to bring up a story about the above image.
The well recognized symbol is found on the U.S. Dollar and is referred to as the “Eye of Providence”.
Although some corners of the internet will take you down a rabbit hole into the Illuminati, that is not the focus of this article.
Instead, I draw your attention to the “Eye of Providence” because when you research into things such as this ancient symbol, to rephrase what Mr. Kahneman said, it is more important because you are currently thinking about it.
Welcome to the Internet
One could surmise that the opposite may also be true.
That something that you are not thinking about has little or no importance.
One thing that many people don’t think about are things that make them uncomfortable.
And who willingly wants to be uncomfortable?
When it comes to things we don’t think about, the list is endless.
Not a day goes by that I don’t see something, a product, a building, a person, that I had no knowledge of its/their existence mere minutes before the interaction or attention given.
Is this because my head is in the clouds or my nose is buried in a book?
Only on good days.
Usually, it is because of the overwhelming amount of stimuli that we cross paths with each and every passing day.
You’ve probably looked at or read several other post or notifications before coming across this article.
We can harp on how the world has changed since these attention attracting behaviours with the invention of the internet and smart phones, or we can just accept that it is a new aspect and part of life that will not go away, regardless of our feelings towards it.
But that would be missing the opportunities it affords us and the world of possibilities it opens up.
Now we can search our thoughts and compare them to the collective consciousness that is online.
One such possibility is to use Google to see how often a word is used according to its database of electronic records of books with the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
The Decline of the Use of the word “Providence”
This makes me wonder how the lack of use of certain words impacts our understanding of the concepts they convey.
The word does not lose its meaning just because it is used less.
It just is harder for me to really “get” what the word means.
We don’t think about the word providence much nowadays and so we don’t think much about what providence even means.
This image helps…
Image Source
If you are a regular reader of my Sunday posts, you know that I don’t exactly do “word studies” or expository writing about scripture.
Generally I share my life experiences and what points of interest that I have come across in relation to the topics that I cover.
This post is no exception.
What I intended is to draw focus and attention to the protective care of God and His orchestration of timing of events that is generally overlooked in day to day life.
One thing that comes to mind is the time I learned about the one of the many different names of God found in the Old Testament which was the name Jehovah-Jireh.
““Jehovah-Jireh” is one of the many different names of God found in the Old Testament. “Jehovah-Jireh” is the King James Version translation of YHWH-Yireh and means “The LORD Will Provide” (Genesis 22:14). It is the name memorialized by Abraham when God provided the ram to be sacrificed in place of Isaac. …
The account of Abraham on Mt. Moriah thus becomes more than a dramatic illustration of faith and obedience. It is a presentation of the Lord’s eternal grace, continual provision, and all-encompassing wisdom. Jehovah-Jireh is not “The LORD Did Provide,” but “The LORD Will Provide.” In other words, the name does not simply memorialize a past event; it anticipates a future action." Source
This action of learning to trust God in matters of that require faith and obedience is challenging, but is possible and comforting knowing the one in whom to trust.
If you are interested in knowing more about Jesus Christ, please let me know.
Lord willing, see you all next Sunday!
Thanks,
@strangerarray
Follow me @strangerarray because you want to.
Donations to PayPal.Me/michaelpaine are also welcome because you want to.
Please check out the previous discussions:
- Disparity on Display
- Comfort and Contentment
- Testify
- Praise and Worship
- Reasons to Believe
- Do I have to go?
- In God We Trust
- It’s Hard to Find Good Help These Days
- Breaking the Habit of Self-Destruction
- Nothing Is Ideal
- What Difference Does It Make?
- Saying Grace
- Livin' On A Prayer
- You Gotta Serve Somebody
- Dying To Be Ignored
- Now That I've Tasted Blood, Now This Wine Tastes Too Thin
- Don’t judge me, bro! - A Special Guest Post by my brother Joshua Paine