When was
the last time your imagination was engaged in a spiritual manner? And further,
did you even think that imagination could be accessed spiritually in the first
place? A great deal of the church does not, through their actions, believe this
is possible. But Paul’s words from Ephesians 3 offer us the possibility.
So much of
what we do in the church, and in our private lives, is done pragmatically.
Getting breakfast, commuting to work or appointments, even our devotional time,
is often engaged solely from a pragmatic or task-centric mindset and not
imaginatively.
For instance, I should eat a
healthy breakfast so I will need to get up 15 minutes earlier than normal to cook
breakfast. I need to exercise, so I should get out of bed 45 minutes earlier so
that all of my plans can have time to occur. That systems approach flows all
the way through my day until the moment I go off to bed- it is best to try to
get a full eight hours of sleep. Then the cycle repeats. Life becomes one,
never-ending, stream of programs and tasks to complete. Seldom do we stop to
imagine what God could be calling us to do, or become, that would break this
cycle permanently. Is it any wonder that Paul’s words from Ephesians 3 are so
hard to apply in our lives?
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask of imagine…”[1]
God is able
to exceed our expectations. We understand this truth when speaking about prayer
or miracles, but do we understand it imaginatively, in a spiritual sense? We
know that when we bow our heads and utter our prayers for healing and God’s
presence in our time of pain, that God will do something for us. While it may
not always be exactly what we though it could be, we accept that God is active.
God is performing God’s designed tasks. But again, I wonder: do you believe
your union with God can grow in ways that puts an end to linear thinking, which
elevates tasks and programs, and live into the possibility that God is going to
do greater things that you believe are possible if you stop and let Him?
It is truly
hard to think and dream in this way. We are not trained to think this way. The
older our children become, the more they are told to put an end to childish
thinking and embrace the pragmatic life of tasks. And while that is important,
it is also not as important in the
church where we are trying to nurture a relationship with an active God.
Yes, the
tasks must be completed and embraced. We cannot all go off the mountains and
pray as the mothers and fathers of the church did. But space can be found in
your life where you can stop and engage God through your imagination. You can
find space to dream a little about how God intends to be present with you
moving forward.
If we continue in the passage just
a bit further we hear that Paul offers a doxology- which is an affirmation of
God’s presence with the church forever and ever. Doxologies are given at the
end of an encounter with God Himself. God is present in this text inviting us
to imagine a new reality where we and God are more intimate then we first
believed. Give it a try… imagine something different from God and see what
happens.
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