distraction on Blindness

God of healing, we look for you in all the wrong places. We assume we have figured out how you are at work. Because of this, we miss out on seeing your glory, and we fail to join with you as partners ...

Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons conducted an experiment at Harvard University more than a decade ago that became infamous in psychology circles. Their book The Invisible Gorilla popularized it...

In the Critically acclaimed 2018 horror film A Quiet Place , Earth faces an alien invasion unlike any other. In the movie, the aliens behave like merciless monsters, using their lightning-fast sp...

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

Lord Jesus, we have been slumbering We have not expected you to be active in our lives And we have allowed ourselves to be distracted from your love We have not seen you in the lives of others And we ...

Years ago, my family and I visited Sequoia National Park in California. The highlight of this trip was seeing the Giant Sequoia redwoods, after which the park is named. These trees are awe-inspiring, ...

As we begin, we confess that our attention wanders. We pray: God of light and life, We know that we don’t always listen well to your word Our lives are full of distractions We pay attention to thi...

Distracted from distraction by distraction

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

Gracious God, we confess that we do not always listen to your calling for us. Instead we carry on with our busy lives, not being mindful of your voice, calling us to live for more than ourselves. Plea...

My thought it is a wanton ranger,  It skips away;  I fear 'twill bring my soul in danger  On Judgment Day...

If you have never had any distractions you don't know how to pray.

We ignore so much stuff for a simple reason: if we didn’t, we’d quickly be overwhelmed, our brains flooded until they seized up. Depending on the kind of information, it takes our brains some amount o...

A gladiator's first distraction is his last.

The biggest impediment to concentration is your computer's ecosystem of interruption technologies: IM, email alerts, RSS alerts, Skype rings, etc. Anything that requires you to wait for a response...

Distraction, at least the dangerous kind I’m referring to, is shifting our attention from something of greater importance to something of lesser importance. Our fundamental and most dangerous problem ...

Heavenly Father, forgive us when we become so consumed with the details of life that we do not see the opportunities that you have placed before us. Open our eyes to your call to extend love, by commu...

You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.

Gracious God, the noise of this world drowns out the beauty of your voice. You invite us to listen, but we deny you time and space. Forgive us for ignoring you. Create in us the desire to listen to yo...

Sisters and brothers, hear the good news When our faith falls short, God remains faithful When we are distracted, God remains attentive When we judge ourselves and others, God offers mercy and forgive...

The American philosopher and psychologist William James once defined human attention as a “withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opp...

I throw myself down in my chamber, and I call in and invite God and his angels thither, and when they are there, I neglect God and his angels, for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for ...

Have you ever wondered the impact noise can have on our cognitive ability? Psychologist Arlene Bronzaft was curious to find out. Studying Public School 98 on the northern tip of Manhattan, Bronzaft fo...

In June 2024, I (A. J.) had the opportunity to visit the Oregon State Correctional Institution in Salem, Oregon, to meet with a group of inmates who had read one of my recent books. The experience was...

We want to be interrupted, because each interruption brings us a valuable piece of information. To turn off these alerts is to risk feeling out of touch, or even socially isolated.

The journalist Andrew Sullivan has some strong words of advice for the modern church,  If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, p...

Help us in this time of worship to be still and know that you are God. In quietness we would hear your voice calling us away from the discordant noises of the everyday world, that our spirits might be...

In the middle of a prayer, whether praying silently or aloud, my mind would bounce from one thing to the next. Dear God in heaven, I pray that you heal my friend who has cancer. Work in her life now i...

We rarely find answers in the distractions. But oh what possibilities live within the quiet of solitude. In my fear to be alone, I distracted myself away from the deep beauty of my own solitude.

The Clinical psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi describes how our minds, without stimuli, tends to quickly turn towards negative thoughts, our dissatisfaction. Contrary to what we tend to assume, ...