I have an overactive imagination. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it isn’t. It’s helpful for my writing, for one thing, but on the other hand, it’s very easy for me to miss what God is doing right in front of my face because I’ve drifted off into one daydream or another.
I grew up with the conviction that a lively imagination wasn’t a particularly ‘Christian’ trait. Certainly, some branches of our faith have an extreme suspicion of anything fantastical or abstract. I once asked my friend Terry why he thought some Christians had such a problem with imaginary worlds, and he wondered whether it was because heresy begins in the imagination, and therefore the imagination is considered a dangerous place not to be trusted – a kind of spiritual Wild West. I think he might have been on to something.
Anyway, I’ve finally come to realise that imagination, like most things, is actually one of the parts of Himself that God gives to us. He blesses some of us with a mind like a razor blade, able to hold focus and slice through nonsense with surgical precision. He gives others of us a mind like a sponge, that soaks up the colour and music of the world, and mixes them together into some new work of art. Both of these minds come from God, and both of them need to be submitted to Him before we can use them well.
Imagination is the ability to envision a different world. Can the Kingdom of God ever come before someone first says, “I wonder what life would be like if…”? Back in Genesis, before God actually performs the act of cobbling together a human being, He first says, “Let us make something different now. Something more like us than anything else we’ve made so far.” In short, God imagined us before He made us. For God, the two might even be the same thing. The ability to create new worlds in the mind is not from the enemy, but from the Father. The trick is to create the kind of world that He looks at and says, “Hey, that’s a good effort!”
Using your imagination is a spiritual discipline, and one that I think God would like us to enjoy on a regular basis. If you’re not convinced then go off and read Ephesians 3:20. To me, that sound like God’s laying down a challenge…
I don’t recall saying that. Are you sure you didn’t imagine it? (Or was it a different Terry?)
It was back at King’s, if I recall correctly, and I do. I suppose you can’t be expected to keep track of every drop of wisdom that falls from your mouth.