We thank you, O God! We give thanks because you are near. People everywhere tell of your wonderful deeds. Psalm 75:1

The Doorway Effect

            Our yellow tabby is an adventurous young kitty who fearlessly chases and stalks wasps, dust motes, and the red dot from a laser pointer. He's bold and lion-like. . . until he's not. Day or night, if he sees someone walk through a doorway toward him, his tail puffs, his back arches, and he scuttles sideways in apparent terror. While I feel bad for him, I have to admit that I laugh. His unreasonable fear is comical. What is it about doorways?

            Doorways seem to have a psychological effect on humans, too. I read an article about a phenomenon scientists are calling the "doorway effect." Have you ever walked into a room and thought, Wait, why did I come in here? This has happened to me too many times to count. So frustrating!

            In recent studies, researchers discovered that people who had to walk to another location to do or retrieve something were more likely to forget what they'd come for if they had to pass through a doorway to get there. Apparently, doorways are perceived by our brains as boundaries we cross. They make us forget what we were doing as we enter the realm, the landscape of a new room. To my great relief, researchers said the doorway effect isn't linked to failing memory, but was found to happen to of those with healthy brains in all age groups tested.

            When we choose to follow Christ, we pass through a doorway of sorts into a new realm. Just as Jesus passed from death to life and walked out through the doorway of the tomb, so do we when place our faith in Christ. As the Apostle Paul described this phenomenon to the churches at Corinth and Philippi:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (I Corinthians 5:17, NKJV).

 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14).

             When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, Jesus used the analogy of birth to explain the phenomenon:

            "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).

            Surely there is no more accurate metaphor for becoming a Christian than that of an infant leaving the cramped confines of his mother's womb and entering a world so much wider, richer, and more wonderful than previous experience has equipped him to imagine. 

            The "doorway effect" doesn't have to be frightening or frustrating. Forgetting can be a good thing. There's no need for fear or frustration when we enter the new landscape of life in Christ.

Daye Phillippo

April 2017