What have you looked at today and not seen?

I’ll tell you what, your nose. Your nose is always visible to you but your mind ignores it through a process called Unconscious Selective Attention. Our brains constantly make choices to prioritise some information coming in at the cost of neglecting other information.

You have seen many things, but you pay no attention… which of you will… pay close attention in time to come? (Isaiah 42:20,23 NIV)

A whole bunch of scientific experiments into why our brains choose to see some things and ignore others has shown that our selectively selective brains screen the incoming information based on our goals and emotions. It turns out that what matters to you, what gets your heart racing, will be the thing you see.

The power of our unconscious is greatest when our attention is under substantial stress. Where we split our attention in our multitasking world of computers vs children, facebook vs family, mobiles vs mates, we are giving more and more responsibility to our unconscious to choose what we see as important. And our unconscious will veer towards that which matters the most. What are you prioritising in your life? What are you giving your attention to?

Jesus tells us to “give your entire attention to what God is doing right now” (Matthew 6:34 MSG). If you don’t go all in with your awareness and attention for what God is doing then you may well miss it, or miss Him, altogether. “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God” (Romans 12:2 MSG).