(Today while looking out the sliding glass door and watching 8 year old Gwen playing in the backyard by herself, my 17 year old Owen said “I miss having an imagination!”. This article is a reprint of one at wrote years ago that I was reminded of after that conversation).
A friend of mine clearly remembers the summer he lost his imagination. He was eleven years old, a distracted fifth grader who yearned for the last days of school so he could return full-time to the fields of play. Memories of the previous summer spurred him in, long days spent lying on his belly in the backyard, racing miniature cars and trucks with his friends. When the last bell of the school year rang, he ran home to get everything ready, and the next morning he hauled it all outside. With the early sun heating up behind his back, he sat down in his special place surrounded by special toys and waited for the delicious feeling to creep over him, but nothing happened. He picked up his favorite truck and ran its wheels over the ground. “Rrrrrr!” he roared, as he had done so many times before, but it was not the sound of an engine this time. It was the sound of a boy’s voice pretending to b'e an engine, he was suddenly self-conscious. One by one he tried all of his old tricks, but none of them worked. The bridge to his old world was gone. He no longer had access to it, and the lost opened up a hollow place inside of him. He looked at his toys and saw what he had never seen before: they were small and cheap, a child’s toys. It had all been a silly game. Standing up, he dusted himself off and left the fossils of his dream lying in the yard (Taylor, The Preaching Life. pg.38).
Have you lost your imagination? It’s easy to do. We get stuck in a rut and we forget to dream. Our faith task is an imaginative one. This does not mean a fictional or fanciful task, but one in which we imagine great results with limitless possibilities. As God’s people, do we imagine leading lost souls to Christ? Do we imagine shaping our community to be more like Jesus? Do we imagine the hungry being fed and neglected being loved? As an individual, do you imagine taking on a leadership roll in the local congregation? Do you imagine leaving behind a legacy of faithfulness for future generations through your family? Do you imagine having a strong marriage? Do you imagine financial stability? When we think of the future, do we imagine success or mediocrity?
God has given us the ability to achieve great results in Him. Do we ever imagine what those results may be? Ephesians 3:20f reads “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever”. When we loose our imagination we loose our drive and ambition. God wants us to be dreamers, visionaries, and leaders with an amazing imagination. With God on your side…who can stop you?! Together, let’s imagine the great things that we can accomplish to the glory of God.