Walt Disney World: Teaching Your Kids through the Magicalness

Walt Disney World, a magical place full of wishes, dreams, adventure, and wherever else your imagination can take you. They say it’s the “happiest place on earth”… and Mickey Mouse is pretty much adorned a “god” of this magical place. It was pretty evident from all the rushing people that crowded around the Magic Kingdom Castle, cut kids off just to get a glimpse of Mickey Mouse himself. Our vacation was a pretty interesting one and I got to see Disney World in a whole new perspective… a place that has removed religion in every context and actually has pledges to Mickey Mouse… made me realize that though the characters are fun and the original purpose of this place has been lost somewhere, I had to teach my son from this vacation. For he was about to be exposed to things that he hasn’t seen yet and things that we do not teach in our home…

For instance, one of my favorite shows at Hollywood Studios is “Fantasmic” – probably one of the best laser and fireworks shows in the parks, though Epcot is a very close second. But the start of the show the statement is said, “the imagination is the greatest power”. My husband leaned over and said “I don’t agree with that”, and I just pondered it for a second, while I watched the rest of the show… here was Sorcerer (or Wizard for little ones who don’t understand that word) Mickey dreaming along and creating his world of wishes, dreams, adventures, and magic, only to be bombarded by Malefiscent the evil queen who comes in to take over, and Mickey is scared and runs away. Then Malefiscent is able to take over the imagination of Mickey and invade it with evil… dragons, snakes, Hades, and all that exists in the world of evil. Finally, Mickey realizes he has the power to take over “his” dream of imagination and defeats the evil that invaded it… Mickey does this by realizing his confidence of believing in good things will set everything right… and it does, the evil is defeated and a huge celebration happens. Now, to me there is MUCH that can taught out this show because satan cannot create anything, can only produce a counterfeit of what already exists. Though Walt Disney World thinks they did away with everything religious, they’ve actually made it that much easier to realize the “false” side of things and produce the truth!

As my son watched “Fantasmic”, I watched him too… he still thinks the dragon is called “Fantasmic” and that is who Mickey fought, but that’s ok, he still got the gist of what the show presented to him. And boy did he have questions!!! He asked, “why did Mickey fight the dragon?” My husband first responds with “because it’s evil”, well that wasn’t a good enough answer for him because that led to more why’s and many more questions. So, instead I gave him break down of the show, explaining to him that both good and bad exists in our world today. Mickey had to fight a dragon because the bad queen wanted to scare him. And of course that brought on, “why?” Which in turn brought another discussion… and I looked at him and said, do you remember the bad dream you had? And he said, “yes”. I said, “satan likes to give bad dreams to scare us, to frighten us because it makes him feel powerful; it’s the same for the bad queen and Mickey, she wanted to scare him because it made her feel powerful”. Which brought on the question “Is satan powerful?” Which I gladly answered this question by using the example of the show and told him, “satan is only powerful is we believe his lies. Do you remember Mickey in the show, when he realized it was his dream, he could defeat the dragon. This is the same for us who belong to God. When we realize the power of Jesus within us, we can defeat satan, just like Mickey did with the dragon. We become confident and strong in Jesus and that will defeat satan.” And that made him feel so much better about the show, for I knew a part of him was a little scared because it did concentrate on the evil characters and evil side of things for quite a period of time.

How else can you teach from Disney World to highlight the power of God? Well, when you visit the Magic Kingdom and stay for the Wishes Fireworks show, listen closely to what they say about making dreams come true – it’s truly amazing! I don’t necessarily agree with making a wish, but I do believe dreams come true because God is the originator of our dreams. But I do believe in teaching my child, they don’t have to wish, they can just pray, because the Bible tells us to ask God for anything and He will give us the desires of our hearts. Our dreams will come true!

There is so much more you can pull out of Disney World to teach about God and the Bible as well… if you visit, ask God for a discerning spirit, He will point out all the things to you that are “warnings” and how to combat it. It’s definitely a great place to visit, no matter if Disney World wants to take out religious context or not, it just proves how stupid the devil is and makes it that much easier to teach your kids about God and His power! Though I saw all the people running up to take pictures with Mickey Mouse or to just get a glimpse of him… it made me realize what it would mean to go to heaven and to “come like a child”. God wants us to do the same thing, that we get SO excited when we get to heaven and when we stand at the throne of God, we want to pull out our cameras, or if were in the back of the line to just get a “glimpse” of Him! It made me realize too, the importance of reading Bible stories to my son (and soon to be new son to welcome to my family), because kids believe the characters to be “real”, and well, Bible stories the characters are REAL and they are in heaven. So that when they get to heaven, they will have the eye popping experience and bodacious laughs and the wide thrilled smiles when they meet Paul, Esther, Noah, Abraham, Daniel, Elijah, Jonah, David, etc. True heroes, true characters that when they told their stories and when they get to meet them face to face they get to ask their questions to them. But the MOST amazing person to meet in my opinion would be Jesus!!! And how honoring that would be for all of us… I cannot wait!!!

Keep reading to your kids! Keep filling their minds with dreams, adventures, hopes, joy, etc. through the Bible! The imagination is a powerful tool in our world, I don’t believe it’s the greatest because God is Supreme, but I do believe we have to keep our imagination in check all because of this one verse:

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8

Our thoughts become our actions and our actions become who we are… be careful where your imagination leads to… Mickey learned that himself!