My husband, son, and I went to a cheap movie the other day. One of those places that runs commercials for a long time before the movie starts. One of the repeating commercials was for a show on the National Geographic Channel, Brain Game.

The commercial talked about how our brains play tricks on us. To help explain the phenomenon a graphic was put on the screen with several small colored dots. We were told to stare at one dot. As we did, the other dots disappeared. If we didn’t blink or change our focus too much it looked like the dot we were looking at was the only dot on the screen. But when we changed focus and looked at the whole screen, the other dots were right where they had always been. (See a sample of this effect here.)

Tricksy it was!

The spokesman said that our brains will just stop seeing a group of objects when we stare too long at one item. It simply removes the others from our sight.

Does that scare anyone else? (Although I admit I tried staring at my knees hoping the fat on my thighs would disappear.)

It made me wonder if we do the same thing spiritually. If we stare so long at what we want–food, sex, success, beauty–do we stop seeing our blessings? When we concentrate intently upon our unhappiness, pain, unjust treatment, do we miss happiness, healing, or mercy? Are our minds tricking us into thinking that the less urgent, the less immediately thrilling, the less glamorous areas of life have no value?

What if one of the dots that disappears is our kids? Our friends? Our spouses? Our responsibilities? Our talents?

What if one of the disappearing dots is God?

On the other hand, what if we focus our gaze on God? If we are looking only at Him we can see the same disappearing effect. He takes away our worries, anxieties, jealousies, addictions. As long as we look to Him, trust Him, He will wipe away dots of sin for once and for all. He will remove them from our sight.

That is a disappearing effect that I will tune in to see.

He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
Psalm 103:12 NLT