Alertness

A family visiting Yellowstone National Park learned a valuable lesson: bears are smart. While driving in the park, they spotted a black bear on the side of the road and decided to take a few pictures from inside their car. Something they didn't think about? Locking their car doors.

The bear approached the vehicle and "managed to grab ahold of the door handle." Amidst the screaming of the kids in the backseat, the father managed to shut the door, "but not without effort."

Thankfully, no one was hurt—but stories like these are helpful reminders that sometimes, even when we feel safe, the dangers surrounding us are more complex than we can understand. Peter tells us that we should "be alert and of sober mind," because our "enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour" (1 Pet. 5:8).

Urban safety experts have long worried about the impact of distracted driving. However, a new study by researchers suggests we should be equally concerned about distracted walking.

Researchers have uncovered alarming differences in behavior between pedestrians engrossed in their mobile devices and those who remain alert to their surroundings. The study, conducted at two busy intersections in downtown Vancouver, used advanced video analysis techniques to examine the behavior of pedestrians and drivers during near-miss incidents.

Published in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention, the findings paint a concerning picture of how our smartphone addiction is affecting our safety on city streets. Distracted pedestrians, those using their phones for texting, reading, or listening to music, tend to walk slower and maintain closer proximity to vehicles compared to their non-distracted counterparts. They also rarely yield to oncoming traffic and are less likely to change their walking direction, even when dangerously close to vehicles. This behavior suggests a significant decrease in awareness of their surroundings and reduced navigational efficiency. This creates a perfect storm for potential accidents.

The next time you find yourself reaching for your phone while walking, remember: the digital world can wait. Your safety, and the safety of those around you, depends on staying present in the physical world.

A pastor and his family on an early morning flight had been delayed for hours and were feeling sleep-deprived and anxious. As the plane landed, another family behind them attempted to exit quickly, with the teenager rushing ahead. The pastor shares:

I stuck my arm into the aisle to block the rest of the family from passing, like I was Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. “None shall pass.” “We’re all trying to get off this plane,” I said to the family, “Let’s wait our turn!”

They had words with me that I cannot share here and pushed past my arm. I was fuming.

As the passenger disembarked, a flight attendant approached, explaining that the teenage girl had been experiencing a panic attack and needed assistance. The family had been trying to help her. The family was not rude; they were desperate.

How did I, a former chaplain trained to notice physiological signs of stress, miss that this young lady needed help? How did I let my core value of courtesy block my capacity to see what was really going on?

I was operating out of assumption and unable to see reality. Rather than see that this young lady needed help getting off the plane, all I could see was a family rudely skipping the line, and I must intervene.

Whether we move toward self-righteousness or self-protection, the common denominator is self. This is what every follower of God has in common: We get caught up in ourselves, we get triggered, we forget others, and we forget the Lord.

At first glance, Rolf Klasson, a gray-haired Swede who hobbles around on his walker, looked like an easy target. At least that's what two would-be robbers thought as they accosted him at a cash machine.

One of the thugs waved a knife while the other thug told Klasson to turn over his wallet. They didn't know that their victim was also the former European light-middleweight boxing champ.

Klasson warned them, "This isn't going to go well." When the men scoffed at his warning, he knocked one of them to the floor with a sharp right hook before laying the other out with a left jab. A police officer later said, "They came after the wrong guy."

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is a great little story to open up a sermon on the victory of the cross or spiritual warfare.

The Internet can be a dangerous place, and a new global survey is revealing that billions of people have likely been the target of cybercriminals at some point in time. The survey found that nearly half of all respondents have fallen victim to a cyberattack or scam.

In a poll of 20,000 adults from around the world, 45% reported that their personal data, such as banking or email account information, has been compromised by a hacking attempt or scam.

According to respondents, online scams and phishing attempts have become more sophisticated and successful due to artificial intelligence. Half of respondents (50%) disclosed that they’ve been exposed to a cyberattack at work in the last year. Of those whose personal data has been hacked, 20% reported that a cyberattacker successfully hacked one or more of their personal accounts, including bank or email accounts.

Delving into the layered side-effects of successful hacks and scams, 22% lost money as a result and 30% said they have doubts that their personal information will ever be safe again.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Cross; Easter; Satan; Spiritual Warfare - Cyberattacks can inflict significant financial harm. However, there exists a less visible but even more critical vulnerability that affects every human being. The Bible speaks of Satan as "a roaring lion seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8), who orchestrates spiritual attacks against all of humanity. These attacks target not our bank accounts or personal data, but our very souls, seeking to separate us from God's love and purpose for our lives. On the cross, Christ won our victory over Satan (1 Cor. 15:57; Col. 2:13-15). Only through faith in Christ can we find protection and true spiritual security.

An article on the website First Things advocates one simple way to improve your prayer life—stop multitasking. David Ousley writes:

Multitasking is not your friend. The whole idea of multitasking as something good is based on the assumption that life is about getting things done. I admit that the world often operates as though this were the case. ... But it is false. Human life, and Christian life, is more about love than about accomplishments.

If we cultivate distractedness, as, for example, by multitasking, then we will bring distractedness to our prayer. If, on the other hand, we cultivate attention, this will bear fruit at the time of prayer. I would suggest therefore that we renounce multitasking, and strive to do one thing at a time, so far as that is possible.

When the local public transportation agency in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, received a federal grant to refurbish their headquarters, they wanted to call attention to the new upgrades. Apparently they were concerned about putting too fine a point on it, so instead they went the other way.

In a playful reference to their name, the Transit Agency of Central Kentucky, also known as TACK, installed a giant red thumbtack at the front of the entrance.

Glen Arney, CEO of TACK, said he initially considered outsourcing the job, but the only place he found was an out of state firm that wanted to charge them well over $100,000. So Arney and a few employees found a YouTube video to help them build one onsite.

At 21’ 7” tall and weighing about 3,000 pounds, the new agency addition was certified by adjudicator as holding the Guinness World Record for the largest thumbtack, beating out the previous benchmark of 19’ 8.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sometimes in life, God has to do something really big and obvious to get our attention.

The Financial Times had a story on a fascinating study showing that our language has been growing more pessimistic. Whereas at the time of the scientific and industrial revolutions there was a shift towards a language with more frequent use of terms related to progress, in recent years there’s been a shift towards words associated with caution, worry, and risk.

The author John Burn-Murdoch writes:

[Researchers] found a marked increase in the use of terms related to progress and innovation starting in the early 17th century. This supports the idea that “a cultural evolution in the attitudes towards the potential of science” [to promote the industrial revolution] and its economic take-off.

[But] extending the same analysis to the present, a striking picture emerges: over the past 60 years the west has begun to shift away from the culture of progress, and towards one of caution, worry and risk-aversion, with economic growth slowing over the same period. The frequency of terms related to progress, improvement, and the future has dropped by about 25 percent since the 1960s, while those related to threats, risks and worries have become several times more common.

The gaming industry, valued at around 257 billion US dollars as of 2024, is on a winning streak. As the pandemic ceased, the competition among gaming platforms and the abundance of game choices dominated the entertainment market.

• Approximately 3.26 billion people worldwide play video games (40% of world population).
• 89.5% of video game sales happen in the digital world.
• In 2022, there were approximately 90 billion mobile game downloads from app stores.
• People between 18 and 34 comprise 38% of gamers globally.
• By 2025, the mobile games industry will reach 138 billion US dollars.
• Around 85% of all revenue in the digital game industry comes from free-to-play games.
• 8.4% of children and teens have problems with game addiction
• Approximately 69% of US households have at least one member playing video games.
• Approximately 77% of parents play games with their children because it allows them to spend time together and to socialize with their kids.

Editor’s Note: You can read the original article which cites many more statistics from a large number of sources here.

You might call it the sound of a rebellion. Young people in the Phoenix, Arizona valley are buying old manual typewriters and using them as a creative escape from the distractions of computers and the internet. It's what good old-fashioned typewriters do not do that’s attracting this younger generation.

Max Johnson brought his grandfather's 1964 Smith Corona to school last year; it was a novelty. Max said, “I inherited it. Rummaging through a closet of his old things. (When I bring it to school) other people are like ‘Whoa, a typewriter.’”

Max was tapping into something else. A generation interested in a machine because of what it does not have. No power cord, no internet connection, no temptation to jump online. No AI prompts. Max went on to say, “So with computers there's distractions everywhere. And if you have ADHD like me, you could get nothing done. But with a typewriter. It's just you and the keys.”

Bill Wall owns the Mesa Typewriter Exchange which has been there since 1947. He says, “I have customers from probably eight years old on up.” Unlike Bill Wall's grandfather who started the company, Bill's business is driven by collectors. Wall continues, “I would say half my customer base is probably under 30. A lot of them have a big vocabulary. They seem to have high IQs. A lot of them are homeschooled. They're very creative.”

A recent Type-In Event at the Chandler Library was organized by 21-year-old Jeremiah Buckovski. He shared, “I like the analog stuff. It's a lot more real than a computer. And I like how it's part of history. I like how they sound. I like how they feel.”

Reporter Joe Dana asked a young teen, “What's it like to write something that's permanent? You can't go back and change it.” She replied, “I think it would make me a bit nervous, hoping to make no errors.”

But permanence can be a positive. Max Johnson takes his typewriter to school every day using it for special projects during free time. He typed up one-of-a-kind letters to a local legislator and to his girlfriend. He said, “With a typewriter, what you said is what you said and nothing can change that.”

You can watch the short video here.

A shocking video captured the moment a fisherman was bitten by a shark that pulled him overboard into the murky waters of Florida’s Everglades—seconds after he shrugged off his friend’s warning.

The frightening ordeal unfolded after the man leaned over the boat to rinse his hands in the water as his pal cautioned him of the dangers. “I wouldn’t put your hands in there,” a person off-camera says.

“Ah, two seconds won’t do anything,” the man replies as he bends over the side of the boat and dips his right hand into the water. Almost instantly, a shark chomps onto the fisherman’s right hand and drags him head-first into the water as he screamed. The shark releases its grip and the man tried to grab onto the boat with his injured hand, leaving a bloody handprint behind.

“Get him! Get him!” the friend screams in a panic. The man was able to get himself back onto the boat with the help of his friends.

His friend, Michael Russo who caught the attack on camera, said the group sped back to the dock and park rangers came to the victim’s aid. “He was airlifted to the hospital and is in the best care possible.”

Russo shared the video as a warning to others. He said, “Today was one of the scariest days on the water I have ever had. After releasing a fish, Nick washed his hands in the water and was immediately bit by a large shark. The sharks are no joke in the Everglades and the warnings about keeping your hands out of the water are not an exaggeration. Please take this as a lesson and keep your hands out of the water because this could have been prevented.”

You can view the terrifying video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Many people also ignore the Bible’s warnings about Satan, who “prowls around seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:7). “Ah, just a moment of yielding to temptation won’t do anything! I’ll be fine.” Sadly, some never escape his clutches.

It’s frustrating to public safety officials that there is so little publicly available data on the role that smartphones play in distracting drivers in auto accidents. According to an article in The New York Times, there is no database of crashes attributable to cell-phone-related distraction. This is even though plenty of states have laws on the books against cell-phone-distracted driving.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2021 only one percent of fatal car accidents were attributed to cell-phone distraction, and only eight percent of all non-fatal accidents involved cell-phone use. But those figures only account for the times when cell phones are explicitly mentioned in police reports. This is usually because a driver admitted being distracted or a witness saw them on their phone.

Regulatory agencies know this is a problem, but other than vague declarations to look into it, they don’t seem to be able to make much headway. Meanwhile according to AAA, road fatalities have reached a 16-year high. It seems the ultimate responsibility to reverse this trend falls on drivers themselves, who often admit driving distracted in anonymous surveys. A recent study found that 50 percent of drivers admitted to having engaged in device-related distraction in the last 30 days.

According to the CDC “driving at 55 miles per hour while sending or reading a text is like driving the length of a football field with your eyes closed.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is important to focus on what matters in life. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted by secondary things. If we do, life becomes more difficult and even dangerous.

In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) officially recognized "internet gaming disorder" (IGD). Addicts play pathologically. They can't stop—they play even after their mental health and careers have suffered great harm. The WHO estimates that at least 60 million people worldwide suffer this condition. Fortnite, a combat, survival and violent online video game is the most played of all time, boasting over 500 million registered users.

Today, games are less expensive, more accessible, and more technically advanced than ever before. Psychology professor Jeffrey Derevensky, who advised the WHO panel, said, "Kids are walking around with a mini-console in their pockets. Gaming is a hidden addiction. You can't smell it on their breath and you can't see it in their eyes. And so parents are often totally unaware of what their children are doing."

Maclean's magazine writer and former addict Luc Rinaldi describes how playing, and especially winning, can meet basic needs:

I replayed Resident Evil 4 a dozen times because there's something endlessly satisfying about blowing up a zombie's head. But my favorite games were the ones that offered something my real life lacked. Exploring the fantasy world of Skyrim, I wasn't just some kid in the suburbs of Toronto; I was a noble swordsman on an epic quest to save the realm. In a video game, even a loner can feel like a king … The high was intoxicating.

The obsession runs deep. One North Carolina boy kept playing as a tornado was leveling his town. A study published in Nature showed that gaming can more than double a player's baseline dopamine levels. Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman claims that, for some players, “gaming can increase dopamine levels as much as having sex or snorting cocaine. Our brains are programmed to seek out more of these hits, which is what drives gamers to keep gaming.”

Like all addictions, there comes the inevitable crash. The trouble is that the euphoric feelings don't last. Gamers develop tolerances. They need to play more to achieve the same rush. After overloading their brains with happy signals, an equal and opposite reaction occurs. Their baseline dopamine level drops. They get angry, sad, and apathetic.

Kenyon Wilson, a professor at the University of Tennessee, wanted to test whether any of his students fully read the syllabus for his music seminar. Of the more than 70 students enrolled in the class, none apparently did. Wilson said he knows this because on the second page of the three-page syllabus he included the location and combination to a locker, inside of which was a $50 cash prize. But when the semester ended on December 8, students went home and the cash was unclaimed. Wilson wrote on Facebook “My semester-long experiment has come to an end. Today I retrieved the unclaimed treasure.”

Wilson said he wanted to include the hidden clues to brighten up the semester during the pandemic. “Teaching in a pandemic, I’m trying to do creative things and, you know, make it interesting. The syllabus is a really dry document, but I thought if my students are reading it, I might as well reward them.”

Tanner Swoyer, a senior studying instrumental music education, said that he felt “pretty dumb, pretty stupid” when he saw the professor’s post about the money in the locker.

Wilson said he was not disappointed with his students. When he was a student, he most likely would have also missed the clues, he said. “We read the parts that we deem important. You know, what’s the attendance policy? What are the things I need to do to pass this class? And then there’s other stuff. On the first day of the semester I pointed out: ‘Hey, there are some new things in the syllabus. Make sure you, you know, make sure you catch them,’ and then no one did.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Alertness; Bible reading; Scripture – Believers need to read the Word of God with careful attention because there are many hidden riches to be discovered; 2) Prayer; Promises of God – God has given us very great and precious promises in his Word which we can claim by faith through prayer (2 Pet. 1:4).

A Florida man was bitten on the leg by an unexpected visitor: An alligator waiting right outside his door. Daytona Beach resident Scot Hollingsworth was watching TV when he heard a bump at the door. He said, “I jumped up and headed over and opened the door, stepped out while trying to reach the lights and barely got out the door and got my leg clamped on and (it) started shaking really violently. I suspect I surprised the alligator as much as he surprised me.”

He was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries from the nine-foot gator.

The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said that people should keep a safe distance from alligators at all times. You should also keep pets on a leash, swim only in designated areas during daylight hours, and never feed an alligator.

The commission also explains on their website that Floridians can anticipate seeing more alligators than usual as the weather warms up. The reptiles are also most active between dusk and dawn.

Florida is home to a total of around 1.3 million alligators, according to the commission’s website. The agency routinely euthanizes so-called “nuisance” gators, which are four feet long or larger and pose a threat to people or wildlife. The commission says relocated alligators will usually try to return to the site where they were captured and continue to create problems, so they must be euthanized or rehomed to zoos or wildlife rescues.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Satan also lurks in the shadows and is ready to viciously attack any unsuspecting Christian. Our defense is similar, be on guard, and be prepared to resist him by putting on the full armor of God (Eph. 6:10-18).

Rich Gilson and his wife, Suzanne, purchased a house in Wildwood, New Jersey, about four years ago, and they have been working on additions and renovations to the home during that time. Gilson, who works in home inspections and renovations, was able to start working on the driveway of the house in the area in front of the home’s garage.

Gilson said, “So I start digging. I’m hitting concrete. I'm hitting rock. I'm hitting glass. Then I found these two things, and they look like root balls. I throw them in the soil pile, both of them, thinking they’re just roots.”

As he continued his work outside on Sunday, he came across one of the cylindrical objects again. “I pick it up, and I'm thinking what is this? Why are these things following me, right? I look at the edge, and I think ‘I can see something there.' It looked like paper. So, I started tugging at the edge, and I knew immediately what it was. I thought ‘this is money.’”

The money was wrapped in brown paper. Gilson and his wife began pulling the cylinder apart, and it amounted to rolls of $10 and $20 bills, totaling $1,000. That money would have been worth a lot more at the time: $1,000 in 1934 is the equivalent of more than $22,000 today when accounting for inflation, per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Gilson said, “So I start to think, OK, either somebody robbed a bank because all these bills came from the same lot,” or he believes that someone may have taken their money out of a bank during the Great Depression in the U.S.

Gilson added that he’s still curious about the money’s story, where it came from and whether someone simply forgot about it. He also hopes that people who see his discovery don’t come looking for more of the money. Gilson said, “Please don’t come to my house with a shovel. I’m trying to finish the house, not make more work for myself.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This story brings to life Christ's parable of the treasure buried in a field. Like the kingdom of heaven, sometimes the most precious things in the world are hidden from view for a while. God has surprising hidden treasure which only the diligent can find. The kingdom of heaven (Matt. 13:44), godly wisdom (Prov. 2:3-5), and the Word of God (Jer. 15:16) are waiting to be discovered by the earnest seeker.

A new study is giving new meaning to the phrase “this city would eat you alive.” Scientists from the University of Miami say sharks are not avoiding the local shoreline. Instead, these predators are spending plenty of time quite close to the sights and sounds of the city.

On a global scale, the world’s coastlines are urbanizing at a rapid rate. So how is that impacting local aquatic life? Researchers decided to investigate by tracking the movements of sharks around the Miami shoreline. Considering the loud noises, chemicals, and bright lights, the research team fully expected the sharks to avoid South Beach like a bad habit. That’s not what they saw.

Researcher Neil Hammerschlag said, “Since other studies have shown that land predators are urban avoiders, we expected sharks to be too. We were surprised to find that the sharks spent so much time near the lights and sounds of the busy city, often close to shore, no matter the time of day.”

Plenty of animals, like pigeons or raccoons, thrive in cities. Meanwhile, “urban adaptors” spend some time in urban areas, but still largely rely on the great outdoors. On the other end of the spectrum, we find most land-based predators like wolves. These animals, called “urban avoiders,” want nothing to do with civilization.

Study authors once thought that sharks are urban avoiders, but ultimately concluded they act much more like urban adaptors. Sharks are closer to the beach than you might think.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Satan, the roaring lion, is also closer than you might think. He constantly prowls looking for the unwary to devour (1 Pet. 5:8) and we need to be aware of his schemes (2 Cor. 2:11).

During the late-Medieval period, London had a strange law on the books—each entry gate into the city had to keep a musician on duty. This could be a dangerous job—city gates were where attackers and other threatening outsiders first appeared. It’s like border patrol nowadays, but they gave the job to musicians.

As strange as it sounds, musicians took charge of many essential services back then. These hired municipal minstrels started showing up everywhere in Europe around the year 1370. They typically played wind instruments—including trumpets, trombones, fifes, bagpipes, and recorders—as well as percussion.

To the modern mind, musical skills and police responsibilities have little in common, but in an earlier age the two roles often overlapped. Musicians not only helped defend the city gate but might also be required to patrol streets at night. In Norwich in 1440 a tax was instituted to pay the waits for their watch—and these musicians were required to take an oath of office. In Germany, a minstrel was expected “to acquit himself well as a swordsman.”

Why musicians? The most obvious answer is that musicians were ideal first responders because they could sound the alarm in case of a major disturbance. Certainly, a loud horn or drum helps in that regard. This signaling capacity of musical instruments also explains their longstanding use in military operations.

Possible Preaching Angles:

In the same way, every follower of Jesus is called to stay awake, to stay at our post, to guard and protect, and pray for the “city gate” where the Lord has posted us.

A Cincinnati Reds baseball fan Jacob Kingsley told reporters, “(As a dad) you have to always be expecting the unexpected and be ready for anything to be flying out of whatever.” He should know. On Tuesday, April 26th, 2022, Jacob and his wife took their 11-month-old son Shepherd to his first Cincinnati Reds game. Jacob told his wife before the game he would protect their son if a foul ball came close to their seats, which were located about 15 rows from the field. Ms. Kingsley said she was anxious about the ball hitting their son and told her husband to be on constant lookout for foul balls. She said, “The entire game I was like, ‘Are you watching, are you watching?’”

Then a foul ball actually zoomed in their direction. Shepherd was strapped to his father’s chest in a baby carrier and was enjoying a bottle when a foul ball popped over the protective net and headed in their direction. “When I saw the ball, I was like, ‘OK, this is my time,’” Jacob said in an interview. “I gotta step up.”

The ball continued flying in the direction of Jacob, who was using his left hand to feed his son his bottle. His right hand, however, was free. “It was just coming right towards me, and I was like, ‘I can’t not try to catch it,’” said the 26-year-old Cincinnati resident. “So I just reached my hand out—there wasn’t anybody right next to me—and I made the catch.”

People on social media praised Jacob for his deft catch. “Bottle didn’t even come out. Legend,” one user tweeted. Another said: “Highlight of the Reds season so far.”

Recent court documents unveiled disciplinary actions against two LAPD officers, actions which resulted in their firing. Former LAPD officers Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were supposed to be responding to a call about a robbery in progress. But according to recordings obtained from their squad car and body cameras, they waited 20 minutes before they responded to the call.

What occupied their attention during that 20 minute span? The popular augmented reality game Pokemon Go. The officers spent approximately 20 minutes chasing virtual creatures on their mobile devices. “A Snorlax … just popped up on 46th and Leimert,” one of them was recorded as saying.

After the firing, the officers protested the decision on the basis of their contention that recording their conversations was an invasion of their privacy. However, the city’s board of rights upheld the firing in their decision, affirming its necessity. In its filing, the city responded: “Playing Pokémon Go showed complete disregard for the community, wasted resources, violated public trust and was unprofessional and embarrassing to the Department.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

As the people of God, we are called upon to give our full attention to serving. If we're unwilling to sacrifice our immediate desires for the sake of others, we can't in good conscience call ourselves disciples of Jesus.