What Did I Miss? — Morning Devotions

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But what they were not told was that halfway through this video, a man dressed in a gorilla suit would run into the court, stand in front of the camera, and beat his chest. Do you know that amazingly only a few of the volunteers watching spotted the man in the gorilla suit? Most of the volunteers were so intent on counting the passes as they’d been asked to do that they completely missed the gorilla.

Did you miss it?

Interesting story, but what’s the point of all this? What was Richard Wiseman getting at? I think he was getting at the point this, that most people go through life so focused on the task that they have at hand that they miss, if you like, the gorilla opportunities, the surprise moments, and in life there are some surprises.

He also talks about the very well-known 3M company. A team of researchers were trying to develop a high strength adhesive, and they failed to notice that by doing something a little bit different, they could develop a low strength adhesive. And today I know I use these, the Post-it notes, you know, the little yellow notes that you can put on your paper that you just tear off very simply. They made them by accident. They didn’t see that here was an opportunity to use the low strength adhesives.

Well, it’s not like that in life, is it? We miss out on so much because we’re not focused on what’s going on around us. We may not be in tune to what is actually happening around us. Maybe that’s why traffic accidents happen. Now the driver says, oh, I looked, but I couldn’t see anything. I just didn’t see anything. I didn’t see the car coming.

We can look and not see.

Now did you know that our Creator God wants to share our life with us, and I believe that God gives us many opportunities to look beyond ourselves, to take a look out there to what’s going on, and often we’re so intent on fulfilling our own needs that we miss those opportunities. It’s very sad that there have been gifted people in our world who might have gone through their whole life searching for meaning and never finding it. The opportunities that were there, they just didn’t see them. I’m thinking, for example, of one very well-known famous person, Elvis Presley.

And in spite of his enormous success, Elvis was quite an unhappy person. He was unfulfilled. His wife, Priscilla gave an interview, and she said this, Elvis, as you know, died at 42, but she said Elvis never came to terms with who he was meant to be or what his purpose in life was. He thought he was here for a reason, maybe to preach, maybe to serve, maybe to save, maybe to care for people.

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And that agonising desire, she said was always with him, and he knew he was not fulfilling it, so he’d go on stage and he wouldn’t have to think about it. That’s what she said. I think that’s pretty sad, isn’t it? In a sense, regarding his purpose in life while he was here, he had no clue of a bigger purpose. He didn’t know where to look. He was lost. We can go through life not understanding why we’re here, but I think that if we want to know the will of God and we want to know Jesus as our Saviour, I believe that God will open our eyes to see outside the day to day existence because our God has built something into you and me that’s there not just for our own good, our own benefit, but something there that is in partnership with God.

Rick Warren says that what matters is not the duration of your life but the donation of your life, and I think that’s very interesting. What matters is not the duration of your life but the donation of your life. I hope that this morning you’ve worked out where you fit into the scheme of things – serving God, serving others, finding out what your talents and your aspirations are, and saying to the Lord, Lord, I give them to you. I want you to bless them and to use them, and I think that’s a great prayer, a great thing to do, to find out that there are opportunities all around.

Let’s Pray

Well, Heavenly Father, we thank you today that we know your presence is with us. We can plan our day, but circumstances change. But Lord, I pray that you’ll help us to trust in you and to look out for those missed opportunities all around us. I pray for Jesus’ sake. Amen.