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!

Children lead us in the ways of the imagination, as in so many other aspects of faith (see Matt 18:3). A cardboard box becomes a house or a palace; wooden bricks and wool become the pathway to electrified railways! I love the phrase ‘make-believe’, because I believe it captures the truth that belief actually leads to reality. The child’s world of ‘let’s pretend’ is as real to the child as the world of breakfast and baths! – and our imaginations, when harnessed to God, can lead us to spiritual worlds every bit as real as the physical matter we can see and touch.

Some see the imagination as an escapist route out of reality (and, of course, it can be.) But Pablo Picasso said, ‘Everything you can imagine is real’, and I believe God wants us to enter into fulness of life (Jn 10:10), rather than being restrained to the mundane which can only be explained by reason. Michael Card says that ‘the imagination is the vital bridge between the heart and the mind’ and I think if we are to grow tall in God, not being withered, stunted or lopsided in any way, we need to see imagination and reason yoked together and learn to love both. Reason is important: it explains, it clarifies, it gives context and understanding. But if we don’t use our imaginations to engage with God, we run the risk of knowing a lot about God without actually knowing Him at all. We are in danger of becoming outsiders to God’s story: outsiders looking in, but never really understanding God’s grace and mercy and love for ourselves. Imagination takes us inside the story. J. K. Rowling said, ‘In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it [the imagination] is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.  Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.’ When this ability is harnessed to God’s word, when faith and imagination are added together, the result is an endless world of possibilities!

Tonight we continued our alphabet series ‘The A-Z of Christian Faith’, looking at ‘I is for Imagination.’ Imagination is often much derided in our Western culture; whilst we accept the role of the imagination in children, as adults, we tend to feel that we need to concentrate on facts and dismiss the importance of imagination as something we need to grow out of. If, however, God ‘is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us’ (Eph 3:20), perhaps we need to look at the role of the imagination in developing a life of robust faith!

Imagination is defined as ‘the ability of the mind to be creative or resourceful’ and ‘the faculty or action of forming new ideas or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses’. This is, of course, what raises alarm bells, for we are wary of anything we cannot define according to the practical world of the senses. The imagination can, of course, be misused, but God wants us to be connected to the invisible world which can be seen only by the eyes of faith, and the imagination is one of the tools He gives us to develop those eyes.

Plutarch said, ‘What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality’, something we see in the life of Abraham who when ‘everything was hopeless, believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples.’ (Rom 4:17, The Message) Imagination is the ‘mental tool we have for connecting material and spiritual, visible and invisible, earth and heaven’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘Under the Unpredictable Plant’, P 171); Abraham was able to imagine the son he could not see and therefore came, by faith, to see that reality.

We need to dream and imagine great things in God, because that is the way we get to see and experience those things. As God gives us impossible visions, dreams that are way beyond our capabilities or abilities, He wants us to learn to trust Him to do that which is impossible, so that, in the words of Sri Chinmoy, ‘I begin by imagining the impossible and end by accomplishing the impossible.’  What a God we serve! – one who ‘can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!’ (Eph 3:20, The Message) It’s time to dream with God.

John spoke this morning on Ps 119:105, commenting about God’s word being a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. We all need to be guided by God, and God’s word provides the illumination and guidance we need. Our feet are given purpose in God, for He has commissioned us to be bearers of the good news of the gospel (see Rom 10:15). Ps 37:23-24 tells us that God makes the steps of a good (righteous) man firm; here, we see that God’s people will be upheld and established by God Himself. When we are following instructions (e.g. to put together a piece of flatpack furniture), we have to follow the instructions in sequence; so too we find that God gives us steps to follow and we need neither to run ahead nor flag behind.

God is able to guard our steps (1 Sam 2:9) and give us a firm place to stand (Ps 40:2); moreover, even when we stumble and fall, He is able to uphold us. Ps 66:9 reminds us that God will not allow us to be moved; Micah 7:8-9 gives us hope that even if we fall, we will rise again. As we walk in the light, we have fellowship with God and with each other and through confession and forgiveness can be restored even when we fail (see 1 John 1:7-9). The spiritual armour God gives us includes sandals with nails in the soles to dig deep into the ground and enable us to stand firm (see Eph 6:15). If we forget to keep our eyes on God, our feet can slip (see Ps 73), but with our eyes fixed on God, we can be sure that we can be successful, living to please Him (see Eph 5:15-17).

The idea of a path implies progress and movement towards a specific goal. It is often a narrow path (see Matt 7:13-14) and one that must be undertaken individually. We find, however, that as we come together with God’s people, we become part of the church and are able to work in unique roles that nonetheless complement the whole.

In Jn 21:15-22, we see Jesus talking to Peter after the resurrection: reassuring him, confirming Peter’s love for him and reiterating His original command to ‘follow me.‘ Peter was forgiven and restored, and reminded that no one must distract him from the task given to him. Jesus calls us to imitate Him (see Eph 5:1); Paul urged Christians to ‘imitate me as I imitate Christ.’ (1 Cor 11:1). We are urged to take note of those who live according to the pattern given us by Jesus and to continually press forward (see Phil 3:12-17), but in doing so, we are also urged to be ourselves, not copying others for the sake of it. God doesn’t want us to do the ‘congregational conga’ (going round and round in circles, getting nowhere) or the ‘church hokey-cokey‘ (simply copying what someone else is doing so that we all put our left legs in at the same time!), but He allows us to be ourselves as we imitate Him and continue on the path towards Him, guided by His Word. Both purpose and progress are possible in God!

Tonight’s Bible study looked at the subject of the Second Coming of Christ, an event heralded by the ‘last trumpet’ (1 Cor 15:52, see also 1 Thess 4:13-18). This has been a hotly debated topic for centuries, discussed by Jesus in Matt 24; as with all prophecy, there is an element of uncertainty and it is unwise to be dogmatic about these events. All too often, people want to be certain of dates and times, but Jesus made it clear that this coming again (often known as the ‘parousia’ or ‘arrival’) cannot be tied to dates in this way (see Matt 24:36, 1 Thess 5:1-11). The Thessalonians clearly felt that if the coming of Jesus was imminent, there was no point in doing anything except sit back and wait for it, a view Paul refuted in 2 Thess 2. We live somehow with the tension between the fact that Jesus could come soon and that this coming does not seem (in our eyes) to be anywhere on the horizon (see 2 Pet 3:3-9). Essentially, the truth that Jesus is coming again should shape how we live every day, whilst in the meantime, we seek to serve Him faithfully until His return.

Views about the Second Coming have been manifold. Some believe this will come at the end of the church age and tribulation; others that the Rapture (Christ coming for His church) will precede this final coming to reign and judge. Passages in Revelation (e.g. Revelation 7 & 8) are sometimes interpreted to mean that the church will be taken out of the great tribulation; others believe that all will face testing and trials before the end of the age. Paul makes it clear to the Corinthians, however, that we have a sure and certain hope of resurrection: ‘For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.‘ (1 Cor 15:52-53) This hope shapes how we live on earth and how we wait patiently for what we do not yet have. As John puts it, ‘Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.‘ (1 Jn 3:2-3)

Don’t miss out on the following events:

• Christian bookstall at both morning and evening services on Sunday 13th November. Christmas cards, books, CDs and presents will be available; payment needed on the day.

• The service at Cherry Tree Court will be on Sunday 20th November at 10.30 a.m. (3rd Sunday instead of the 2nd Sunday) as there is a Remembrance Day service there the week before.
• Come along to the Winter Wonderland and Christmas Market on Saturday 19th November from 12 noon until 6 p.m. at Thurnscoe Memorial Park. There will be a skating rink there, plus Santa’s Grotto, children’s fun fair and live entertainment, not to mention the Christmas Food Court, featuring Turner New Leaf’s homemade chutneys, apple sauce and piccalilli!
• Christian bookstall at church on Sunday 13th November. A great opportunity to buy Christmas cards, books, CDs and presents (diaries, calendars, Christian gifts etc.) The bookstall will be there at both morning and evening meetings; payment needed on the day.
• We’ll be getting the goody bags ready for the Christmas Market on Wednesday 23rd November from 9-11 a.m. Come along to help bless our local community with Christmas leaflets, sweets, glowsticks and other items. The more helpers we have, the quicker we’ll get this done!