{"id":47600,"date":"2004-11-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/"},"modified":"2004-11-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-11-08T00:00:00","slug":"gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/","title":{"rendered":"Gorilla Proves We Can Miss the Obvious"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why do some people see opportunities others miss? In the book <em>Did You Spot the Gorilla?<\/em> psychologist Richard Wiseman describes an experiment that provides a clue.<\/p>\n\n<p>Volunteers watched a 30-second video of two teams playing basketball and were asked to count the number of times one of the teams passed the ball. What they weren&#39;t told was that halfway through the video, a man dressed in a gorilla&#39;s suit would run onto the court, stand in front of the camera, and beat his chest. Amazingly only a few of the volunteers spotted the man in the gorilla suit. Most of the volunteers were so intent on counting passes that they completely missed the gorilla.<\/p>\n\n<p>Wiseman concluded that most people go through life so focused on the immediate task at hand they completely miss <em>gorilla<\/em> opportunities. He gives the example of a team of 3M researchers who were trying to develop a high-strength adhesive. One of their attempts produced a product that was actually the opposite&mdash;a very low-strength adhesive. Most of the team thought the result was a failure, but one saw it as an opportunity. That adhesive failure went on to became the invention that made 3M Post-It notes a reality.<\/p>\n\n<p>If we aren&#39;t careful, we can be so fixated on the mundane, that we miss God-given opportunities of significance.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3406,3790,3997,4567,4623,4633,4908,5004,5057,5236,5242],"tax_ctp_topics":[396],"class_list":["post-47600","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-alertness","tax_ctp_tags-discernment","tax_ctp_tags-focus","tax_ctp_tags-opportunity","tax_ctp_tags-perception","tax_ctp_tags-perspective","tax_ctp_tags-seen-unseen","tax_ctp_tags-small-things","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-perception","tax_ctp_tags-vigilance","tax_ctp_tags-vision"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gorilla Proves We Can Miss the Obvious - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gorilla Proves We Can Miss the Obvious - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why do some people see opportunities others miss? In the book Did You Spot the Gorilla? psychologist Richard Wiseman describes an experiment that provides a clue. Volunteers watched a 30-second video of two teams playing basketball and were asked to count the number of times one of the teams passed the ball. What they weren&#039;t Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/\",\"name\":\"Gorilla Proves We Can Miss the Obvious - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2004-11-08T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2004-11-08T00:00:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Gorilla Proves We Can Miss the Obvious\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Gorilla Proves We Can Miss the Obvious - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gorilla-proves-we-can-miss-obvious\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Gorilla Proves We Can Miss the Obvious - CT Pastors","og_description":"Why do some people see opportunities others miss? 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