More Then Meets the Eye

Just finished the first draft for my next article. This is the first draft and will probably be cleaned up a little bit more before sending it to the newspaper later this week.

More Then Meets the Eye
By Kevin Presseault

Hard to believe that summer is over.

I love summer time. Playing outside with the kids. The beautiful weather. Blue Jays games. Summer is great. One of my favorite things about summer is the Hollywood blockbuster movies which hit the theaters. I just love going to the movies. Ever since I was a little kid spending my paper route money, I love grabbing a big bag of popcorn and enjoying some fun, exciting movies.

By far my favorite movie this summer was Transformers. In case you didn’t see it I’ll try not to spoil the ending for you here. This movie is based on the toys which first appeared in the 1980s. I never had any of the toys growing up but I sure did want them! If you’re not familiar with the story behind Transformers it’s actually quite simple. The Transformers are a race of giant robots from another planet which has been raging war between two groups for thousands of years. The good Autobots have been trying to stop the evil Decepticons from finding the powerful “All-spark”, a device which would give these evil robots the power to control the universe. Their war brings the robots to Earth, so in order to not draw human attention to their existence, they “transform” into common Earth vehicles, like trucks, cars, jet planes, tanks and helicopters.

The movie really was mindless fun watching these robots battle each other for control of the All-spark.

I was really struck with a very simple concept while watching this movie. Normally, I don’t try to find anything spiritual in a movie like this… mainly because usually it’s quite a stretch to find it. But this really hit a nerve which I’ve been going over again and again since I saw the movie in July.

In 2 Corinthians 3:18 we read “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” Paul is saying that those of us who have put our faith in Jesus are being transformed into the likeness of Christ. Also we are not to be like Moses and cover this up by putting a veil over our faces like he did. I love this verse…. God’s glory shines through us as we are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus. How cool is that?!?!

What hit me was how this transformation unfortunately plays out in so many of us. Instead of having this ever-increasing glory out there for all to see, too often we’re more like these giant transforming robots. We allow ourselves to be transformed only so that we can stay hidden. We keep who we really are a secret from the rest of the world. We transform when we’re all together on Sunday but, when we’re out there in the world, we don’t look any different then anyone else.

God doesn’t transform us so we can sit comfortably and stay hidden. He transforms us so that we can be more then meets the eye! He wants the world to see His ever-increasing glory… and He wants to show this to the world through his church, you and me.

Optimus Prime, the leader of the good Transformers, has this great line when he calls his fellow Autobots to action, “Let’s TRANSFORM and ROLL OUT!” What a great call for us Christians as well. Let’s be transformed by the Spirit and roll out into a world that needs to see the love of Jesus everywhere. Roll out and volunteer at your kid’s school. Roll out and help feed the homeless. Roll out and do some work in the community. Roll out and show God’s glory and His love everywhere that you go.