Anyone who has spent time worrying and fretting about hypothetical scenarios will know that the imagination is not always a blessing. There is a world of difference between imagining all that could go wrong in life and letting God’s story fill our minds, broaden our horizons and expand our vision. If we only dwell on our story, we run the risk of going into realms that may well trip us up, but if we allow God’s story to fill our minds, broaden our horizons and expand our vision, we will be able to explore God’s exciting plans for our futures. When we read the Bible, we need to imagine ourselves into the story. We’re not just reading facts; we’re invited to explore the story from the inside.
Think about the story of David and Goliath (1 Kings 17). Goliath is the Philistine giant who taunts the Israelites daily. He reduces them to quivering jelly; he makes them feel utterly inadequate; he bombards them with facts. He uses words to intimidate, to discourage, to dishearten – and the world uses words like this every day; sometimes, we use words like this every day. ‘I can’t do this. This problem is too big. Look at the size of Goliath. Look at my size.’ As Casting Crowns sing, “The giant’s calling out my name and he laughs at me, reminding me of all the times I’ve tried before and failed. The giant keeps on telling me time and time again ‘Boy, you’ll never win.’” (‘Voice of Truth’) The Scripture says, ‘On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.’ (1 Sam 17:11)
David, on the other hand, isn’t dismayed and terrified. He hears the same words, the same taunts, the same jeering as the others, but his response is totally different. ‘Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?’ he asks (1 Sam 17:26) David has spent his life as the youngest of eight sons, relegated to looking after the sheep, but whilst he’s been doing what appeared to be a very ordinary and mundane job, he has actually been letting God shape his imagination and fuel his faith. He has been meditating on creation; he has been ‘immersed in the largeness and immediacy of God.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Leap Over A Wall’, P 40) He’s been learning first-hand about God’s protection and provision; he’s been soaked in the reality and relevance of God, so that he says now, without any sense of boasting or arrogance, ‘The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.’ (1 Sam 17:37) David, who has been sitting through the watches of the night looking after sheep and writing poetry – poetry! how useless is that!!– is suddenly able to become the deliverer, the one who defeats Goliath with a sling and a stone, because his imagination has seen God’s victories and cannot conceive of Goliath as a giant when he knows the greatness and grandeur of God. That is what can happen when our imaginations are God-dominated, rather than Goliath-dominated.
Elisha once enraged the king of Aram so much that he sent his horses and chariots to Dothan in order to defeat him once and for all and stop him from bringing God’s word to the king of Israel. ‘When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.’ (2 Kings 6:15) Elisha’s response was: ‘Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ (2 Kings 6:16) The servant could be forgiven for thinking his master had finally lost the plot. Those who function with a godly imagination and faith are often accused of being insane; as Terry Pratchett, fantasy author of the Discworld series said once, ‘Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.’ But the story goes on: ‘And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.’ (2 Kings 6:17)
Elisha, through imagination and faith, could see far more than his servant. He knew more of the invisible reality of God and was therefore not intimidated by the king of Aram. We are only intimidated by the problems of the world when we have not let our imaginations be re-formed by God’s story. When we are secure in God, ‘it doesn’t matter what we see.’ (Aaron Shust, ‘Deliver Me’) That’s why Paul urges us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. (Rom 12:2) When we have our minds renewed, we see things from God’s perspective rather than from our own and thereby become connected to the invisible world He inhabits.
Jonathan Swift said ‘Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.’ Let’s explore the wonderful world of the arts – stories, poems, paintings, sculptures, photography, music, crafts – and allow God to nourish our souls and fuel our imaginations so that we live in the ‘immeasurably more’ of God’s reality. There’s so much more to explore!
