Did you know magazine ads and press releases once celebrated the health and lifestyle benefits of building with asbestos and smoking? Decades later we look back on that and think, “How silly!” But at the time, people who smoked or handled asbestos had no idea what they were dealing with. This was a significant cultural blind spot. Blinds spots cause us to believe things that aren’t true and do things that are foolish. What about today’s blind spots? What are those?
A five-year-old hits a home run in T-ball. Dad and mom think, “He has a future in the Big Leagues!” So they enroll him in a program that provides the best coaching and greatest opportunity for advancement. While they hate to have to miss church so frequently because of his baseball schedule, they don’t see any other way to unleash his full potential.
One of the blind spots operating in this story is the infinitesimal chance this 5-year-old ever makes it to the Major League. It’s just statistics – do the math! The other blind spot is the life lesson this kid is learning: church is important… unless there is something more important.
Parents who routinely skip church to maximize their children’s athletic prowess shouldn’t be surprised when they go away to college and routinely skip church to sleep in, do homework or anything else they deem to be more important. It was modeled for them: church is important… unless there is something more important.
This blind spot of maximizing potential, athletic or otherwise, at the cost of church attendance is an asbestos of our day. Rather than waking up decades from now and saying, “How silly,” let’s wake-up now so we don’t have to.
