The Unwanted Tickets

The Unwanted Tickets

It was a bargain! We could buy a ticket to five tourist attractions for just the price of two. We decided to take up the special offer on the internet and we made the purchase happily. My best friend was here in Australia, from the USA, and we were eagerly organising where we would go and what we would see together. We now had the tickets to five tourist attractions, of which four seemed very interesting. However, the fifth one of those destinations, in which we now had entry to, appeared to not be very appealing. We had great anticipation as we planned our trips to the Aquarium, the Wildlife Zoo, Sydney Tower and the Sea life Centre. We looked with much less inclination on the tickets we held to the Wax Museum. 

We both had preconceived ideas as to what a wax museum might be about. I had toured a small one many, many years earlier. It had been dimly lit and it felt creepy. It was not an experience I really wished to repeat. My friend also felt spooked by the thought of exact recreations of people from wax. We had seen the colourful advertising with it’s feature of wax rock stars and hollywood legends which lessened our interest even more. We thought we knew what the museum was about and what we would see and our desire to visit was diminishing by the day.

After a holiday lasting  a wonderful six weeks and seeing many Australian sights and enjoying varied experiences, my friend was coming to her final days here. Our pre-purchased tickets had a thirty day limit to them. We were off to enjoy the Wildlife Zoo located next door to the wax museum before she left. We still had the unused tickets to the ‘scary’ wax museum. They sat in my purse looking forlorn and unwanted. Then with a sudden surge of financial interest in our ticket investment, we discussed using them. We could, after all, just take a peek at the attraction. We didn’t have to stay.  We could leave at any time we wanted to. The moment we felt creeped out or spooked we would exit the building. 

With Captain James Cook discoverer of Australia

We spent our morning and early afternoon in the pleasant surroundings of the Wildlife zoo. We came out of the friendly zoo and stood gazing apprehensively at the entrance to the wax museum. It was now or never. Our tickets were about to expire and my friend was departing from the country in two days time. Cautiously we entered the wax museum. To our amazement and delight it was nothing at all like what we anticipated. The advertising hadn’t depicted it in it’s fullness. It wasn’t spooky or creepy or dark and dinghy. We moved around different interactive areas representing historical moments in past Australian events, areas with wax models of famous world leaders who had made an impact on society,  figures of those in the field of science and medicine and many more. It was very educational but also a lot of fun as most of the exhibits allowed you to enter into the scene. We learned  about the incredible skill a sculptor needs to have as a team work for up to ten months to create an exact replica of the person they are modelling. Our experience at the wax museum was fun and very interesting.

with Albert Einstein 

with the Royal family

with famous bush poets, Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson

I am reminded that due to the death of Jesus we all have pre-purchased tickets to the destination of heaven. Will we accept those tickets? What kind of preconceived ideas do we have of heaven? What do we think we will do there? Who do we think God really is? How do we think we will interact with others and with God himself? Do I really want to go there? Do you love God so much that you want to dwell with Him forever? Do you desire the purity of holiness?  Having read the Bible verses that depict scenes and activities of heaven gives us a very vague glimmer of an idea but the reality is that “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.” ( 1 Cor 2:9) Preconceived ideas can greatly diminish  our vision of the true highest joys of an eternal life of continual communion with our heavenly Father in purity of holiness and the wonderment of other centred love. Will you accept your ticket  and step into a life of knowing God. John 17:3 "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. “

Isa 64:4 For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear, Nor has the eye seen a God besides You, Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

Ps 31:19 How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you bestow in the sight of all, on those who take refuge in you.