What We Want and What We Need: The Story of Humanity

I took my family to Disney World, where I was treated to the richest fantasies the world has to offer. I also felt I got a peek behind the curtain. Not the curtain of Disney magic, but the deeper truths that guide our existence. In this series, I’m sharing stories about my experience there, and some of those truths that I saw peeking around the corner of imagination.

* * * * *

We’ve been walking all day in the muggy Florida heat. Our steps have taken us through eleven different countries on four separate continents. We’ve listened to a traditional Japanese drum prayer, sat in the cool of a Moroccan bathhouse designed by the King’s own architects, filled ourselves on French desserts, and watched a 15-minute history of the United States. Now we’re sitting on a terrace overlooking the World Showcase Lagoon, waiting for the evening fireworks show. Next to us sit a mom and her two young adult daughters – and we’ve just discovered that they are from LaCrosse, WI. It’s a small world after all.

As the sun sinks below the horizon, what few bugs have escaped Disney’s insect prevention magic find my legs. Soon enough, though, my attention is consumed by the spectacle of a Disney show. Torches flare to life around the lagoon, one just over my right shoulder, the dry heat of the fire almost welcome in place of the humidity. Out on the water, a massive globe begins to drift toward the center, as the show begins with an explosion of fireworks.

Fire. Wild, chaotic bursts of flame spew from across the lake, rockets launch almost haphazardly into the sky. There is little rhyme or reason, just furious conflagration. And heat. And noise. And power.

It stops. After the cheers of the onlookers, there is just silence. The globe drifts to the center of view and is suddenly illuminated as the continents themselves light up with scenes of flowing water, birds and beasts, and growing things. This Earth-in-miniature has come alive. Lasers spin across the sky above it, as water from the lagoon begins to fountain all around it. The scenes on the globe change to people, places, cities, landmarks. A history of the whole world told in the span of a few minutes. The fireworks continue, but in hues of blue and white and turquoise, coolness after the heat.

The music changes. A soul-stirring tune carries the refrain “We Go On,” and the globe breaks open at the top. The torches around the lagoon – which, until now, I had not realized had gone out – flare back to life, as a massive single torch rises out of the globe and reaches to the sky, against a cheap tadalafil 20mg Balance is controlled by your eyes, inner ear, and cerebellum. They are as follows:- Frequent urination Painful urination Interruption of urine flow Discomfort or pain in penis Presence of blood in urine Abnormal color of canadian online viagra urine Abdominal pain especially in lower part Causes :- Prostate gland enlargement:-It is one of the major causes of this disease in men. Once people see the word inflammation, they think about eliminating inflammation by antibiotics.But for the “infection” of prostatitis, medical experts do not recommend that men should stop taking sildenafil soft tablets such medicines based on this study report. As we all know we live a very hectic professional and personal life hardly have the time to visit a physician and you are in emergency need of your medications, the online drug store’s physician will consult you for free of charges loved this buy levitra in canada and select the desired mode of payment to pay for the products generating or something other objectivity the air level has filled with the contaminants which are highly. backdrop of crackling white fireworks. This is our story. This is the dream of humanity. United as one, all the world, all its people come together and raise a beacon of hope that we will go forward in peace and love for one another.

It’s beautiful. Inspiring. Haunting.

And missing something.

From chaos to order to beauty to meaning to purpose to unity, the story of humanity can seem so glorious, until you stop to think about where it is all going. For if this story is only about humanity, then every face that appeared on that globe represents a life that ends only in death. Every city and landmark is destined to crumble and lie in ruin. Every nation and people will fall. And when the sun goes dark and the globe freezes and life ceases to exist on this cold, dark rock, there will be nothing to show for it, and no one to remember it.

But if there is a God who was present in the chaos, who held the raging fire in his hands and forced order upon this world, whose power and grace brought forth life and culture and language and art and music, whose hands stretched out to take hold of all that separates, all the hatred, the discord, the disunity, the barriers between us, who laid himself on the altar and took all the explosive fury that evil incites, and broke open the Earth to emerge victorious as the single flame of hope for all mankind, if that God tells us that we have beauty and meaning and purpose and unity, then the story of humanity is truly glorious indeed. Glorious. Not because of glory that comes from within us, but because of glory bestowed upon us, and glory given back to the God who makes us glorious.

This is the true story of humanity – a people made for a purpose, a purpose lost in selfishness and folly, a God who redeems at the cost of his own life, and a life remade in his resurrection, poured out onto the people he created and loved. Redemption. This is the true story of humanity.