“But as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him’—these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God” (I Corinthians 2:9-10, ESV).
The imagination is a powerful tool of the mind. It is refreshing and sometimes amusing to see evidences of a young child’s imagination. Children can push aside parameters of time and space and build for themselves a world of imagination peopled with friends with whom they communicate. They can imagine situations and scenes that are pleasant and happy. As they grow older, and due perhaps to parental and other pressures to “get real,” they lose some of the imaginative abilities that kept them happy as youngsters. But even adults who can imagine, dream, think about something good and worthwhile to invent or to do, have made tremendous contributions to the world.
In the passage cited above, Paul the Apostle is quoting from Isaiah 64:4. The prophet, as early as 712 BC, was urging his hearers to imagine what God had in store for them if they would only seek and find God’s way. When Paul quoted from Isaiah, he had the advantage of knowing that the Spirit of the Living God was in the midst of believers, “searching everything, even the depths of God.” Isaiah in his day urged people to remember God, and to seek out the marvelous works He had in store for them.
Theologian C. S. Lewis called imagination “the organ of meaning.” Imagination plays a vital role in our ability to learn, to be creative, to help us make sense of the world. Dr. A. W. Tozer urged us to use our “purified and Spirit-controlled imagination” to “gaze with astonished wonder upon the beauties and mysteries of things holy and eternal.”
The imagination is a powerful tool of the mind. It is refreshing and sometimes amusing to see evidences of a young child’s imagination. Children can push aside parameters of time and space and build for themselves a world of imagination peopled with friends with whom they communicate. They can imagine situations and scenes that are pleasant and happy. As they grow older, and due perhaps to parental and other pressures to “get real,” they lose some of the imaginative abilities that kept them happy as youngsters. But even adults who can imagine, dream, think about something good and worthwhile to invent or to do, have made tremendous contributions to the world.
In the passage cited above, Paul the Apostle is quoting from Isaiah 64:4. The prophet, as early as 712 BC, was urging his hearers to imagine what God had in store for them if they would only seek and find God’s way. When Paul quoted from Isaiah, he had the advantage of knowing that the Spirit of the Living God was in the midst of believers, “searching everything, even the depths of God.” Isaiah in his day urged people to remember God, and to seek out the marvelous works He had in store for them.
Theologian C. S. Lewis called imagination “the organ of meaning.” Imagination plays a vital role in our ability to learn, to be creative, to help us make sense of the world. Dr. A. W. Tozer urged us to use our “purified and Spirit-controlled imagination” to “gaze with astonished wonder upon the beauties and mysteries of things holy and eternal.”
A quotation was popular with the teenagers I taught in the 1980s: “If you can dream it, you can achieve it.” This lies at the heart of imagination, having the ability to picture goals and work toward them. Have your imagination and creativity been buried beneath the zeal just to make a living? God has more awaiting us than just the ordinary day-to-day. We must be willing to “let go and let God” operate. Listen to this promise: “Now to Him Who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think (imagine), according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Ephesians 3:20-21 ESV).
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