Random Thoughts from DeHart

Think back to a time when you were truly hurt. Not a physical hurt, but rather a psychological or emotional hurt cause by someone close to you. It could be a time when a friend spread your deepest secret with those who would use it against you. It could be when someone you truly loved with left you for someone else. You would be angry. Now, did you forgive the one who caused you this harm? Forgiveness is a big part of the Christian life. We are commanded to forgive, but are there other benefits to this? Are we to forgive and forget? If we do forgive and forget, how are we any different from a child who is in constant need of redirection? Memory plays a major role in life. It is how we advance through childhood and into adulthood. Picture a child and a fire. The child looks at the fire with no prior knowledge about what it is and what it does, but knows it looks pretty. If the child reaches out and tries to grasp the fire, what happens? He burns his hand. This pain is committed t...

Dualistic thinking depends on this word. We can pray for another person’s soul, or show concern for it, but if the word soul was erased from our vocabulary, dualistic thinking would become more difficult. Another example is the use of the phrase Christian life. In using this word, we make the mistake of separating Christianity for life’s other functions and direct it inward to were Christian life only affects the person, and not his or her surroundings. This could not be farther from what a Christian life should be, because no part of life is “irrelevant to being a Christian.” (pg. 117) Words can both be used to describe, and divide. Christians use adjectives to separate themselves into sects. A Bible-believing Christian may be considered different than a Born-Again Bible-Believing Christian. This seems to be specific to the American culture. If you look at Christians from India, they refer to each other as Christians, but in America, we add an adjective, such as Baptist or Method...

Roll the dice, what are the odds you get seven? You have a secret way that rarely fails you in this endeavor. Blow on the dice, say the number you wish it to land upon three times, and throw them. Congratulations, we have a winner. Was that luck, or just finding an order in a random event? We so easily see correlations, or cause and effect links, where there are none to be found. You are blowing on the dice did nothing to improve your odds of winning, but you were so ready to make a random act seem totally predictable. In that, you have erred.  We tend to overestimate our own judgmental accuracy. When asked the question, “Which is longer, the Panama or Suez canal?” (pg. 86), people were sixty percent of the time correct, and felt seventy five percent sure they were correct. This is an example of what some psychologists call cognitive conceit. This overconfident phenomenon is present in a variety of fields of study.  A doctor has a patient with a spot on their arm that has p...

Did you go to church on Sunday? If so, what was the sermon about? Can you list out the main points? Not all of them, I suspect. Now think to your freshman year. Any particular lectures come to mind as memorable? All this is to say that it is not easy to remember something taught to us via speech. When speaking, we often overestimate the power of spoken word. Few people remember something spoken to them, thus the job of a teacher becomes very difficult. A teacher must “deliver a message that not only gets our attention but is understandable, persuasive, memorable, and likely to compel action.” (pg. 79) In this chapter, the authors present five different principles to help get the most out of our hearing and reading, and for presenters to present more potent messages. The first principle is: “vivid, concrete examples are more potent than abstract information.” (pg. 80) By this, we mean that presenters need to present specific illustrations in their presentations. Studies have shown th...