Would You Rather... - Decisions and Distractions

There is a game called Would Your Rather...? in which players are asked to choose between two hypothetical situations that are almost equally undesirable. For example, would you rather always spit when you talk -OR- always be spit on when spoken to? (I'd take the latter, by the way.) One of the questions on the box is "Would you rather be the circus person that the knife thrower throws knives at -OR- the one who puts their head in the lion's mouth?" This question is easy. I'll take the knife thrower every time - because I know how the trick works.

Like most circus/magic tricks, it's all about distraction. The performers mesmerize us with flashy lights and costumes and dramatic music so that we don't realize that the knife throw doesn't actually throw the knives. Instead, he hides them with his sleeves after making the throwing gesture while a perfectly timed secret compartment instantly flips around in the wall the target is standing against, suddenly showing a knife exactly like the one the "thrower" apparently threw. As long as everything happens fast enough to fool our eyes, we think that a knife was thrown and that it stuck into the wall inches away from the target, but in reality, the target was never in any danger at all.

In life, we're constantly having to make difficult decisions, but many of those decisions become easier to make when when know what the options actually are. Satan tries to distract us and confuse us into misunderstanding what our options are so that we'll make the wrong choices, but if we develop the skill of seeing through his deceptions, it becomes easier to choose the right. None of us would ever turn down eternal blessings in favor of eternal damnation if we knew that was what we were doing, but after Satan has worked his stage magic to make something dangerous look safe and something safe look dangerous, we're liable to make the wrong decisions as often as not. We need to be careful and observant to see through are the tricks so that we know what we're really choosing between. I'm sure that if we knew the truth about our options, the decisions wouldn't be as difficult as they first appeared to be.