We have a new toy at work:  an iPad with a program that runs augmented reality.  The interpreter carries the iPad to one of the house foundations in Fort Frederica National Monument.  Then you line it up just right, push the button, and a house appears as you look at the foundation on the iPad.  The house is augmented reality.  You can walk all the way around the foundation and see the house from different angles.  The image of the house is the best guess of what the house would have looked like based on historical and archaeological records.

I took the iPad and played around with the augmented reality the other day.  I held the iPad up to the Matthews house, pushed the button, and then walked all the way around the foundation.  There was a porch on the back of the house with a rocking chair!  The house had tabby walls and green shutters.  There was smoke coming out of the chimney.  I tried it on several other buildings on the grounds and had a good time showing it to visitors.  People thought it was really neat and it made the houses seem more real.

Augmented reality is a wonderful tool for historians.  It might also be a good tool for people of faith.  Merriam-Webster defines augmented reality as a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view.  People of faith use augmented reality all the time.  Instead of technology, however, we use faith as the lens to see the real world.

Think about Hebrews 11:1 and 3.  “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”  Faith gives us the view we need to see reality as God sees it.  We can look at current events through cynical human eyes or we can see them through the lens of God.  We can be discouraged that change is so hard and takes so long or we can think about it as part of God’s eternity.  When we see the real world as a composite with our faith, we cannot give up at working for God’s Kingdom.  When we look for the Kingdom in our reality, we are surprised by what is around the corner.  

Is the real world getting to be a little too much for you lately?  Try looking at it with the augmented reality of faith.  See, and be inspired by, the world that God is working to create.