As [one researcher has] described it, our brain blinds our mind to the unusual. For instance, in one study, researchers put a clown on a unicycle in the path of pedestrians. The researchers asked people who walked passed the clown if they had noticed anything unusual. Everybody saw him unless they had been on their cell phone. Three out of every four people who had been using their phone did not see the clown. They looked back in astonishment, unable to believe they had missed him. They had looked straight at him but had not registered his presence. The unicycling clown crossed their paths but not their minds.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Distractions—We're so focused on the wrong things that we miss what God wants to do and say to us. (2) Supernatural—We're so locked into our naturalistic assumptions about reality that we completely miss the supernatural (and the demonic too) all around us.