I sat with my family as we watched Criss Angel tonight. It wasn't very enjoyable, not only because Criss Angel is just weird, but because everyone in my family room would pause the show and nitpick the entire illusion, trying to figure it out. "There's no way he could be walking on water, because why are those girls not swimming in front of him. There's glass under him, there has to be," my mom kept repeating. And then it wasn't magic anymore. There is something very beautiful about just enjoying a magic trick. Of course Criss Angel didn't really walk on water, but that isn't the point. The point is to enjoy a great artist doing something he's very good at. Enjoying the magic of "seeing" a man walk on water.
And then I was reminded of how as Christians, we can do something similar. We can take something as beautiful as the story of God and His people and instead of just enjoying the simplicity and complexity of this story, we try to analyze every sentence and every word, and we end up missing the magic.
