How a Certain Kind of Augmented Reality (AR) Can Change Your Life

Augmented Reality is in the news everywhere these days, thanks to new initiatives by Apple and Facebook. It’s touted by some as the next really big thing that will change our lives.

Augmented reality is "a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing a composite view.” (Photo by Tom on Flickr ; Licence)

But I’m talking about a different kind of AR. 

Instead of a computer-generated image, this one is a God-generated image. 

Imagine seeing a representation of Jesus going everywhere with you superimposed by God into your vision. Would that change anything for you? 

Isaiah has that kind of experience one day as he goes to the temple to worship and pray. All of a sudden, God and angelic creatures are there, and he sees the glory and holiness of God. Presumably, anyone else in the temple that day wouldn't have seen this augmented reality. 

It changed him forever.

You may never have an experience like Isaiah's, but your experience of God's glory and holiness doesn't have to be all that different. And you, too, can be changed forever by a vision God wants to generate for you. I'll explain how this weekend as we look at Isaiah 6:1-8 in our Gospel Project series. 

Do you know someone who needs a vision of God's beauty that you can invite?

Ever Feel Like You Are Flying In The Fog?

By John Eiselt

John Eldridge writes about a terrifying flight he took with his family in Waking the Dead:

Photo by Tim Trad on Unsplash

Rain and mist smeared the windshield as we strained our eyes ahead, searching for a break in the clouds. There’s no radar in these planes; bush pilots fly VFR-–visual flight restrictions. If you can’t see where you’re going, well, then, mister, you can’t go there. And you can’t keep trying forever, either; the clock that’s running is the fuel gauge. Three more minutes, and we’ll have to turn back.

“We’ll give it one more pass.”

“Fairweather Mountain” is a total misnomer. With a name like that, don’t you picture some lovely place in Hawaii or maybe Costa Rica–-balmy breezes, gentle green slopes, the weather always, well, fair? These mountains explode 15,000 feet or more above sea level, right off the coast of southeastern Alaska, sheer cliffs and foreboding glaciers."

Some of the world’s worst weather hangs out here. The pilot was yelling above the drone of the engine, “They get their name cause you can only see ’em in fair weather.”

Fair weather? Around here, that means maybe twenty days a year–-if you’re lucky.

Twenty clear days a year–-that sounds about like my life. I think I see what’s really going on about that often. The rest of the time, it feels like fog, like the bathroom mirror after a hot shower.

John Eldridge describes precisely what life feels like most of the time for many of us. What is even more precarious is flying in the fog without realizing it.

What do we do when we find ourselves in such a season? Do we pray more, go to church more, take on a new religious practice, or is it something deeper?

This weekend at Five Oaks, we’re going to dive into a story of a victorious warrior in need of a different kind of victory. Come, let the fog part as we apply this story to our own lives in search of the clarity and the healing that we all desperately need.