Clear Thinking

What is clear thinking? What happens when your eyes and brain don’t agree? Take a moment. Focus on the ball at the center of the picture. Does the scene seem to vibrate, move, and distort your vision? If you move your head slightly forward and backward, does the color field of the rosette appear to pulsate? You ask yourself, what’s going on here anyway? Is this a brain game? 

Research and scientists have several theories about how our eyes and mind collaborate to create an illusion of movement—although the precise neural mechanics remain unknown. Is the visual picture a prank? No, the vibrating rosette combines several illusory effects. When you fixate on a pattern, it momentarily remains on our retina as an after-image. It is technical, but eye movements cause a ghost image to overlap with the actual image on the page—called a moiré effect: similar, repetitive patterns merged together at slightly different angles, creating a rippling effect. Got that? By adding two high-contrasting colors, blue and yellow to the picture the effect is enhanced. When you approach an object, our brain normally makes adjustments so that the object’s size and brightness appear to remain constant. But when you move your head back and forth, the alternating dark and light patterns in the rosette change in both size and brightness. Magic—no? Our visual system cannot bring the blurred boundaries within the image to focus, and the brain cannot adjust. Fuzzy thinking or fuzzy seeing? Does it hold true when reading? Absolutely. Different people take away different things from a book.

We have a choice to believe its ‘fuzzy seeing’ or ‘fuzzy thinking’. Clear thinking is critical when understanding God’s Word. God gives you the choice to believe in him or not and nothing, not even God, will force you to change your thinking. What does God have to say about thinking? He says we are responsible for our mind and body. God says think great thoughts. God reasons with us, he said in Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us reason together,” says the Lord.”” To reason together with God is to know his character, study his thinking, and obey his Word. Remember, his ways are higher than ours. God has a good, pleasing, and perfect plan for his children. He wants what is best for you; he gave his Son to make that possible. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:2 In other words, think about yourself as the Word. Ephesians 5:29 points it out clearly: “After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body.”

It is rare indeed to find a person who takes time to think clearly. Too often our fast-pitched, over-stimulated, jacked-up society acts like a school of Piranhas responding to something falling into the river rather than rational people created in the image and likeness of God. Apply what the Bible says to your life. You cannot go wrong. There is good reason to think clearly. Read 2 Peter 3^rd chapter for clear and “wholesome thinking”.

Now, take another look at this rosette. Seeing is believing—except when the mind can be tricked into believing what it sees. Clearly, here is what you need to know:

 

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8