I’ll bet you can!

I’m sure most of us immediately deciphered the title of this post as “Can You Read This?”

But how was your brain able to make sense of the jumbled letters so quickly?

Researchers believe that our brains use context to make predictions about what’s to come. Take an example like:

“Yuo cna porbalby raed tihs esaliy desptie teh msispeillgns.”

This is readable because as our brains decipher each word, they also predict which words would logically come next in order to make a coherent sentence. When faced with a word we can’t quite unscramble, our brains fill in the gaps based on subsequent words.

This even works with words that have NUMB3RS 1NST3AD 0F L3773RS. The numbers’ similar appearance to letters trumps their normal meaning.

Jumbled words are easiest to read when the first and last letters of the word remain the same, and only the letters between them are transposed. But when the middle letters are scrambled more confusingly, your brain has a harder time trying to process all the letters simultaneously. Try deciphering this:

“Big ccunoil tax ineesacrs tihs yaer hvae seezueqd the inmcoes of mnay pneosenirs.”

That was a bit more difficult, wan’t it?

But what about when it’s our lives that are a-jumble? When things happen to us that don’t seem to fit a meaningful pattern?

How do we make sense of the bewildering hardships and crises that often beset believers?

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