DON'T MISS THE GORILLA!

Before you read any further, you may wish to visit this link and watch the short video clip: https://youtu.be/IGQmdoK_ZfY?si=8TkUMIKYCqYFnfkE. Copy and paste it into your browser. Return here when you finish it.

Inattentional blindness is the failure to notice a fully visible, unexpected stimulus when attention is tightly focused elsewhere. In psychology, inattentional blindness refers to the failure to perceive an obvious, meaningful stimulus because attention is consumed elsewhere. The gorilla is visible, present, unmistakable, yet unseen.

Scripture repeatedly warns of the same phenomenon. “Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42). The issue is not the absence of signs, but misdirected attention. The danger is not ignorance, but again, it is misdirected attention. Scripture consistently warns that people will miss the coming of the Lord not because it is hidden, but because their focus is elsewhere. “As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be…” (Matthew 24:37-39). People weren’t rebelling. They were absorbed in the routine of life. The flood arrived while attention was anchored in the familiar. It did not sneak upon them. Noah, the preacher, may have warned them about it for 120 years (Genesis 6:3).

“Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot…” (Luke 17:26-30). Daily business, planting and harvesting crops, building, and getting married, all of which were not sinful, but were all-consuming. But still judgment arrives. This is why Paul states, “Now it is high time to awake out of sleep…” (Romans 13:11). He is saying, "Focus!" Paul frames spiritual alertness as a state of attention rather than knowledge. One translation says, "Now it is past the appointed time but not yet quite too late..."

We are in an age when there are more things competing for our attention than ever before. We carry in our pocket phones having the processing power that would have required a full-size building to house computer components to perform at the same level. There is a reason we say, "Pay attention." It costs us effort to focus on what is most important.

Jesus knew there would come a time when our attention would be pulled in so many directions, thus He said, “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged (weighed down) with surfeiting (giddiness and headache due to overindulgence) and drunkenness (intoxication; not necessarily because of alcohol) and the cares of this life” (Luke 21:34). Not persecution, but preoccupation. The mind is weighed down by cognitive and emotional overload. “When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh…” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-6). The issue is attentional complacency rooted in false assurances.

Jesus also said, “Ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” (Matthew 16:3). He is saying that there was nothing wrong with their attentive ability, but it was misallocated or wrongly focused. “They will turn away their ears from the truth…” (2 Timothy 4:3-4). Not deafness. Rather selective listening. Scripture does not portray humanity as blind to the coming of the Lord, but as looking so intently at lesser things while the ultimate thing arrives unseen. The coming of the Lord will not be missed because it is hidden, but because attention has been focused elsewhere.

Inattentional blindness explains how people can stare directly at the truth and swear nothing happened. Human attention does not fail because it lacks the capacity to see, but because it is looking at the wrong thing. I find it interesting that after Jacob had his spiritual awakening, he renamed Luz (a dried-up almond branch) to Bethel, the house of God (Genesis 28:19). Returning to Bethel after many years, he called the place, El Bethel, the God of the house of God (35:7). He refocused his attention from the gate of heaven on the earth, to the God of heaven. He took his gaze off the hand of God and turned his attention to the face of God (Psalms 105:4). Those who seek the hand of God may stop when it closes. Those who seek His face remain. Jacob realized he had misplaced his attention on earthly things. When things around us claim our attention, the mind narrows its field of attention, blocking out all else. This produces inattentional blindness, an honest failure to perceive what is plainly present. This explains how people can “not know” until judgment arrives. Not through ignorance or rebellion, but through misdirected vigilance. The tragedy is not darkness, but attention already used up.

People may miss the coming of the Lord for the same reason they miss the gorilla in the video clip. They are faithfully attending to something else. One can be fully awake to the task and completely asleep to everything else. Determine what is the most important thing in your life and set your face toward it like a flint (Isaiah 50:7).

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