2 Corinthians 4:3-6: The Invisible Gorilla

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. - 2 Corinthians 4:3-6

The light is there but we cannot see. There is a term for things which are clearly visible, but which cannot be seen: inattention blindness, which is "a failure to notice unexpected but perceptible stimuli in a visual scene while one's attention is focused on something else in the scene." The most famous example of this was a study done at Harvard University where "six people-three in white shirts and three in black shirts-pass basketballs around. While you watch, you must keep a silent count of the number of passes made by the people in white shirts. At some point, a gorilla strolls into the middle of the action, faces the camera and thumps its chest, and then leaves, spending nine seconds on screen. Would you see the gorilla?" In the study, half of observers did not see the gorilla. It was, effectively, an invisible gorilla.

How could "God's glory displayed in the fact of Christ" not register in an environment of darkness? Isn't God so obvious? These verses attribute this blindness to the "god of this age" (the devil) which prevents us from seeing that which is projected in front of us. But what if the "veil" by which our vision is just a masterful piece of misdirection, a series of subtle or not so subtle ploys to direct our focus--our attention--on something else busy but inconsequential so that when God does appear we are busy trying to get him out of the way so we can count balls being passed. 

Lord, obscure the unimportant and bring Jesus into sharper focus so we can operate on the basis of reality, not on the basis of what draws our easily attracted attention.