Our twin grandsons – almost 4 years old – live with us while their dad is building a house. I love listening to them playing … I hear one of them saying, “I need help!” And the other one answers, “I’m coming … roll to the rescue!” Their imaginations are stoked from the many books they read, and they are living out the fun stories. I carefully avoid eye contact because that disrupts the flow of the story. Instead I shrink down to be invisible to give their imaginations free rein. They are so engaged, so happy … and for those minutes there is little sibling rivalry!
It’s in these moments of watching their creativity that I am reminded that imagination is a gift from our God! As kids imaginative play seems to flow easily but as we mature, somehow that imagination becomes stifled. Not that adults should be in the floor calling out “roll to the rescue,” but instead we could be envisioning a bright future, using our imagination for crafting, art, journaling, even Bible reading!
Yes! Have you spent time reading the Bible wondering what you just read. We all have. But what if we engage our imagination, allow the sounds and smells of the wilderness to surround us? What if we stop to imagine how the Bible character felt, what he might have been thinking? What if we imagine the implications? Granted we have difficulty separating ourselves from our modern Western culture, but if we allow a Godly imagination to roam just a bit, the Scripture may speak more deeply to our hearts! God has prepared amazing things for us … He gives us glimpses of those things in His word!
“Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard, or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him.”
1 Corinthians 2:9
God transcends our imagination. And clearly He challenges our imagination.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
Ephesians 3:20-21
