One of the unexpected pleasures of our Coca~Cola Museum adventure was a short movie featuring a lab geek and his assistant searching for reasons for Coke's massive, worldwide popularity. We had already decided to experience the entire museum (well, except for having our pictures taken with two larger-than-life cartoon characters) so we dutifully got in line for the big event. I say "big" because it was filmed in 3-D and shown on a massive screen in a tiny theater.
I did question the implications of signs over each entry way that read, If you have a back problem, are pregnant or don't want to get wet, please sit in the back two rows. My Groovy companions shot me a glance but we decided to sit in the big girl seats so we moved along until we found seats that weren't dappled with fresh spots of water.
Coca~Cola ripped a page right out of the Disney handbook when they made this movie because it was more like a theme park ride. As we followed the main characters' quest, we experienced moving seats, cold air, wind and splashes of water, all in places appropriate to the adventure on the screen. And the 3-D effects were so vivid I swear at one point that a sharp spear of wood was going to touch my face.
We oohed and aahed like little kids. We may have been easy to please on that unbearably hot summer day in Atlanta, but pleased we were. The special effects not only enhanced the movie experience, they cooled us off and left us laughing.
What really amazed us was the believability of the 3-D effects that came to life simply by wearing a cheap pair of cardboard glasses. While our life experience told us this just couldn't be real, our eyes readily received the images, and our brains suspended reality and drew us into the 3-D world.
As we walked back to our hotel, I began thinking about the life application in this movie experience ~ application as to how we choose to see things, which impacts how we live. Some of us don't need a vision correction. We see and live clearly, openly, boldly, joyfully in truth and integrity.
Some of us need a little or even a lot of vision correction but are too vain, distracted, enmeshed or busy to realize that we are no longer seeing or living in a way that is truly best for us. We have bought into the cultural or self-made lies of who, what, how and when we should be. We are no longer seeing things clearly.
Some of us are self-aware enough to detect our own vision deterioration but often we need the help of a seeing professional such as a trusted friend, counselor or other who speaks truth in love to help us discern our need for correction. We are fortunate enough to accept a course correction with our vision restored through clear lenses.
Some of us prefer to view the world through rose-colored glasses. There's nothing wrong with a joyful approach but it's joy-despite-circumstances not joy-by-ignoring-or-pretending-circumstances-don't-really-exist. We are no longer seeing things clearly because we hide from the truth rather than live the truth.
Some of us have taken this whole vision thing a whole step further and have donned the 3-D life as a Christ follower. Seeing life through His perspective, we realize that our own worldly vision with or without worldly correction, isn't the fullest life we can have. Donning His 3-D glasses our experience becomes so much more than we can muster on our own. Our enhanced senses become keenly aware of the Garden life we were meant to experience from the beginning. It's a much larger-than-life scenario than even our most talented movie makers or most vivid imagination can conjure ~ and it's real.
I want to be His 3-D wearing, wild child who fully, joyfully experiences the roller coaster ride of my life~ powered, protected and enhanced by Christ
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