Psychologist Daniel Simons is famous for his “Invisible Gorilla” experiment.
Maybe you’ve seen it on YouTube: two teams, one in white shirts, one in black, pass basketballs back and forth. The task: count how many passes the white team makes.
Most people nail it. “Fifteen passes!” they shout, thinking they passed the test.
But then Simons asks: “Did you see the gorilla?”
Wait – what gorilla?
Rewind. Watch again without counting. Sure enough, a man in a gorilla suit strolls through the middle, beats his chest, and walks out. He’s on screen for nine seconds, but about half the people completely miss him.
This is called selective attention. When we focus on one thing, but we can miss something massive happening right in front of us.
Rods, Cones, and Focus
My wife is a nurse who specialises in eyes, and she loves this stuff. She’ll tell you the retina is mostly filled with 90 million low-res rods. Only in the fovea do you find most of the 4 million high-res cones. Our brains can’t process everything, so we point those cones at a few things we focus on, and everything else fades. That’s why you don’t see the gorilla when you’re counting passes.
And it’s why focus matters more than you think.
Focus vs Fear
At Ivy, we’re spending the summer in a series on Wellness, looking at the life of Elijah. (Check it out at ivychurch.org). Last week guess what everyone (and I mean all ages) loved most? A colouring sheet and pencils we gave out, which they worked away at during the talk and subsequent discussion times. So many remarked on it and how it helped them FOCUS – we are giving them out tomorrow too with a picture of Elijah standing outside a cave – as God asks him this question:
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”
We have been looking at 1 Kings 19. Elijah had just won the biggest victory of his life when fire fell from heaven on Mount Carmel, the prophets of Baal were whupped, as the people declared, “The Lord – He is God!” over and over.
But then Queen Jezebel threatens him. And suddenly, Elijah’s focus shifts.
Instead of faith that comes by hearing God, fear of her words takes over.
Instead of God’s power, he sees Jezebel’s threat.
And down he spirals:
- Afraid – focused on fear.
- Running – focused on saving himself.
- Isolating – leaving his servant, hiding under a bush, complaining “I’m the only one…”
- Despairing – praying, “I’ve had enough, Lord. Take my life!”
Shift Your Focus
God responds, not by answering Elijah’s prayer, but by sending an angel: “Get up and eat.”
It’s like God says: Don’t give up. Don’t stay stuck. Shift your focus.
So Elijah eats the food, strengthened enough to walk forty days until he reaches Mount Horeb. And there, in a cave, God asks him the question first time, both piercing and merciful:
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
That’s not just a question for a prophet on a mountain. It’s a question for every one of us when fear takes over, when we isolate, when we focus on ourselves.
The Distractions and the Whisper
As Elijah comes out of the cave, God gives a spectacle of his power:
- A mighty wind tears mountains apart.
- An earthquake shakes the ground.
- Fire blazes across the sky.
But the Lord is not in any of them.
Finally comes – in a gentle whisper.
God can be in and speak in all the previous ways, but waiting for him we don’t always have to demand the spectacular or the obvious. To connect and hear him in the still, quiet, often-overlooked presence, shutting the door and getting in the secret place requires focus.
The Reframe Opportunity
So God speaks – but here’s the problem: Elijah still doesn’t get it.
Even after the whisper, when God’s question is repeated (“What are you doing here?”), Elijah gives the same self-focused, self-pitying answer: “I’m the only one left, and now they’re trying to kill me too.”
No reframe. No shift in focus. Just the same story, on repeat. James says Elijah is a man like us. These things are written for our instruction.
So what does God do? (I’ve NEVER heard a talk that addresses this next part, but here’s reality).
In essence, God says ‘Let’s find someone else then…’ Elijah’s only job from now on (and I can’t spin this to say he becomes a mentor because he only actually engages with one of them in any real sense) is to raise up new leaders to replace him – go and find and anoint Elisha, Hazael, Jehu.
Now I’m sure God still loved Elijah, but the mission is too important to stall with one man’s self absorption.
That’s sobering, isn’t it?
If we don’t reframe, God may raise up someone else to do what he could have used us to do. I know this is true, because though I have been privileged to be used by God a little at times by his grace, I know there are so many times he told me to do something and I didn’t then he got someone else. I don’t want to keep having that happen – how about you?
Changed or Transformed?
There’s a difference between being changed and being transformed.
Hard times will change you whether you like it or not. But transformation is different. Transformation is internal. It comes when we reframe, when we let God reset our focus.
Elijah didn’t do it. It says he went back the way he came. Others, the next generation – had to step up and step forward.
What About Us?
So here’s the question for us, the same one God asked Elijah:
“What are you doing here?”
Not just “How did you get here?” or “Why are things the way they are?” but at this point in your life, today, what are you doing here? As we let God locate us:
- Will we retreat, or reframe?
- Will we go back, or move forward?
- Will we live stuck in fear, or focus on God’s whisper?
Because the truth is: you’ll never see the gorilla if you’re too busy counting passes.
And you’ll never see what God is doing or what he can do through you – if all you focus on is what you fear.
Time to Refocus
Where’s your focus right now?
On your problems, or God’s power?
On the distracting noise, or the quiet whisper?
On the voice of fear or the Word of faith?
Shift your focus. Reframe. Don’t go back the way you came.
Because we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed—we are those who believe, and are saved.
👉 Where do you need to shift focus this week?