Helpful. Just not the secret.
Most of what happens around you today, you’ll never notice.
There’s a part of your brain called the reticular activating system that’s involved in deciding what gets your attention. Your brain filters an enormous amount of what’s going on around you because it can’t pay attention to everything.
But you can influence what you notice by intentionally looking for it.
Say I call you over to the window of an office building and have you look out at the parking lot for a minute. Then I turn you around and ask how many red cars were down there. You’d have no idea. You weren’t looking.
But send you back to the window and tell you to count red cars first, and it’s easy.
Nothing about the parking lot changed. What you were consciously looking for did.
Paul told the church at Philippi to think about whatever is true, whatever is honorable and right and pure and lovely, anything excellent, anything worth praising.
It gets read as a keep-your-mind-out-of-the-gutter verse. And it is that. But it’s also an example of activation, because the more you look for good, the more of it you’re going to see.
It was there the whole time. You just weren’t counting it.
At the start of the day I try to remember to think of three things from yesterday I’m grateful for. Doesn’t have to be anything big. Maybe a good meal, or time with one of my kids, or just getting a chance to relax.
I didn’t notice a difference at first. But after a while I started seeing that there’s a lot more good going on than I realized.
A few lines later in that same letter, Paul says he’s learned the secret of being content in any situation. Fed or hungry, plenty or nothing.
Learning to notice the good probably helps with that.
But that’s not really the secret.
Paul wrote that letter in chains, knowing he might not get out alive. But you can see him noticing the good. He points out that the entire palace guard has heard about Jesus because he’s locked up, and that other believers got bolder watching him.
Then he says the real point.
To live is Christ and to die is gain.
He had no idea how his trial was going to go. Or if he lived past that what might happen to him later. But he knew exactly how the story ended, and that was enough to be content with either outcome.
Noticing the good helped him. Knowing the ending saved him.
If we believe what we say we believe, we already know the end. What we don’t know is the middle. And the middle can be tough.
But knowing how the story ends changes how you live through the parts you don’t understand yet.
In the meantime, keep looking for the red cars.
P.S.- If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.
No commentary. No telling you what to think. Nothing to buy. Nothing fancy.
Just steady time in the Word.
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