A magician always has to top his last act.
I remember watching master illusionist David Copperfield up the ante through the years.
Early in his career, he wowed spectators by making an elephant disappear. Later, he dazzled his audience by causing an airplane vanish into thin air.
But he had more up his sleeve.
In 1983, he performed his amazing disappearing act with the 305-foot-tall, 225-ton Statue of Liberty. Before a live audience, and in front of TV cameras, he plucked the enormous iconic statue right out of the New York skyline. Behold, Lady Liberty. Now you see her. Now you don’t.
Child’s play.
If bigger is better when performing this illusion, then I’ve topped David Copperfield. I’ve performed an illusory stunt of unparalleled proportions. In repeat performances, right before my very eyes, I’ve made God disappear.
Of course, it’s just an illusion, but it’s a visual deception that can be very convincing. To my naked eye, it appears that the One I’m not seeing is not really there.
Here’s the secret to this trick. Our naked eye is easily fooled. The enemy knows this. The deceiver understands that the key to creating a convincing illusion is to divert the audience’s attention. Show them what you want them to see, and hide reality behind the curtains.
To live by the naked eye is to unwittingly serve as the enemy’s apprentice. When we assist the deceiver in throwing black curtains over the God of promise, while trying to interpret life by mere appearances, our eyes will surely deceive us.
It’s only with the eye of faith that we see the invisible God who is present in every circumstance. It’s only with the eye of faith that we encounter the reality of a personal God who works mightily in and through us.
As for Copperfield and Lady Liberty, the secret to his illusion was not to make the Statue of Liberty vanish, but to hide the monument from view. But when we see God with the eye of faith, we do more than hide statues. We move mountains.
No matter what we see with our naked eye, there is a God of wonders who is very present in the middle of it all. So, let’s fix our eyes on He who is invisible, and prepare to be amazed.
.
Drawing from Experience 