More Optical Illusion object lesson ideas with possible application.

These images are attached to this post so that you can download them. They were collected from the web at http://www.dailyedge.ie/optica...11976-Jun2014. Some may be copyrighted, but because we are using them in a non-profit, educational purpose, for commentary, they fall under the "fair use" rule.

A few possible discussion topics these could be used in.

• Learn to look at things in a new way.  
• Seeing things you didn't see before.
• Are you sure your opinion about (church, God, people) is correct? Or is there another way to look at them or see what you didn't see before?
• Are you fooling yourself? Is seeing believing?
• Beginning to see what others see when they look at Jesus.
• Why some people see one thing, and others another thing.
• How can God change your mind about what you see when you come to church?

Sometimes we are so sure of something, -or our opinion of someone, that we close the door to seeing something new and amazing about them.

Take this square for example. It is square, right?

But put it in motion by rotating it, and you can see something quite new that you didn't see before. It appears to pulse and change its shape.

Are you fooled by your opinion about something (God, going to church) ?

Take a look at this checkered box video. If you only saw the first part of the video, you would swear the person was making it float, but you're mind would be wrong.  It's really just a drawing on a folded piece of paper attached to a stick.

Maybe you are convinced that going to church is a floating box, and you need to give it another look to see what it REALLY is.

Judging Others
Sometimes, one bad or "off" thing about something or someone makes us believe that other things about them are crooked too.  Maybe you don't like the way a person speaks, or the minister's face, or the type of music, or the color of the classroom. You are convinced it is crooked. But is it?

Each of these horizontal layers looks crooked, but they are actually all parallel.

Often times, our perception, our "opinion" of things is "colored" by things around it. People influence what we think about God, for example.

Take these two squares for example, A & B. They are surely different shades, right?

Wrong. They are the same shade as the following solution shows you. Our perception of the squares is affected by the surrounding colors and shadows, just like the people we surround ourselves with affect our perception of whether or not the two squares match.

Hanging around negative people.

Hanging around people who don't believe in God, or don't like going to church.

How can two people sit in the same Bible class or worship service and have two DIFFERENT experiences and opinions of the same thing?

Look at this simple graphic. At first, you see purple circles blinking.

Now stare at the cross in the middle. Pretty soon you will see a green circle rotating around over the purple circles,  ...and then the purple circles will disappear. Sometimes, you just need to PAY ATTENTION and FOCUS on the right stuff in study and worship.

Two people, same event, different experiences. What gives?

You sit in worship, or say your prayers, and it all seems very "blah blah blah." You and your friend go to the same worship, same Sunday School classes, same mission projects.  Your friend discovers God's presence and it becomes a life changing experience for them. You don't feel or see anything.

Try this:  Have one person look at this odd picture....glancing all around at it without really focusing, while the second person focuses intently on the center dot as instructed. When the picture becomes black and white, ask the friend who concentrated on the center dot what they saw. It only appeared for a moment.

How will you know Jesus when he speaks to you? When he comes to you through other people?

It takes time, study, prayer, reading, openness. And eventually you may even see him in the face of the poor, the needy, the hungry, your family.

Stare closely at the dots in the middle of this picture for about 30 seconds. Lend quickly stare at the palm of your hand, or a piece of white paper. Who's face do you see?

This optical illusion utilizes "retinal burning"  ...the image temporarily burns itself so that you see its "after image" when you are no longer staring at it. How does worship and prayer help you see glimpses of Jesus in your life?