“’In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” 

Acts 2:17

How vivid is your imagination? Jaco Hamman writes that imagination is the ability “to see what is not there, and to know the unknown or the unuttered”. When playing as a child, did boxes become castles, tea towels make princesses, and blankets cloak secret headquarters? Now older, is the power of your imagination still alive, or have you put off these childish things? 

Imagination is necessary if we want to move from what is, to what could be. Can we hope without imagination? Can we vision? Imagination is necessary for our spiritual life. How else can we perceive God? Jesus stretches our insight with parables that tease the imagination. God as the father of a lost son, God as the tailor of majestic clothing for the flowers of the fields. Can we pray or worship without imagination? The writer of Psalm 42 imagines himself seeking God as a dehydrated deer desperate for water. He speaks to his own soul of the weight of sorrow he feels. In Ephesians Paul’s prayer requires imagination for its answer. He wants the people of God to know the unknowable, “love that surpasses knowledge”. He asks God to expand imagination by doing “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”. 

A sign of the life of God within us is our capacity for imagination – daughters will prophesy, sons will see visions, and old men will dream dreams. Does your imagination require rejuvenation? Imagine you woke up tomorrow and the Spirit moved in your life, releasing your capacity to imagine. What would be the slightest sign this miracle had occurred? How would you pray, play, work, worship? Now, invite the Spirit to do immeasurably more than you have imagined. 

In Him, 

Jason 

Photo by Chris Burgett on Unsplash