Prov 27:12 NLT
A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions.
The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.
Our Lord had mentioned several times in Scripture that many will still be caught unawares despite the fact that He had given the signs and warnings concerning the end times. It is really predictably irrational that even when the signs and mathematical certainty are there for any event, many will still be caught unawares. It is a psychological state known as normalcy bias. This state causes people to under-estimate the possibility of an impending disaster and the severity of its consequences. They assume the event will not happen as it has never happened before. People in this state tend to downplay the signs and infer a less severe outcome.
Of course, there are also people who over-react. They will cry wolf every time some signs are evident. Both are extremes to be avoided.
In the article “The Normalcy Bias and Bible Prophecy” by Todd Strandberg, he writes, “One of the most tragic examples of the normalcy bias is the experience of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Barton Biggs, in his book, Wealth, War and Wisdom, gave a very good description of what happened :
By the end of 1935, 100,000 Jews had left Germany, but 450,000 remained. Wealthy Jewish families…kept thinking and hoping that the worst was over. Many of the German Jews, brilliant, cultured, and cosmopolitan as they were, were too complacent. They had been in Germany so long and were so well established, they simply couldn’t believe there was going to be a crisis and that would endanger them. They were too comfortable. They believed the Nazis’ anti-Semitism was an episodic event and that Hitler’s bark was worse than his bite. They reacted sluggishly to the rise of Hitler for completely understandable but tragically erroneous reasons. Events moved much faster than they could imagine.” (The above message is extracted from my book, The Coming Economic Flood.)
With the bleak economic results for the first 2 quarters of this year and negative growth forecast for the rest of the year and the ongoing pandemic second wave causing the reopening of the economies around the world to be delayed, it will be foolhardy for anyone to believe in a soon and quick V shaped economy, and does nothing to prepare for a longer recession.
A few steps are necessary to overcome such a normalcy bias :
- Accept such times are in God’s end time timeline.
- Pray to God for wisdom.
- Assess the threat one will face.
- Sit down to plan and act right away to tide over.
It is better late than never to act to overcome one’s normalcy bias right away.
