WESTWAY-BETHEL BAPTIST CHURCH
Churches in Port Elizabeth

The best two moments of my summer thus far sprung from two things normally not high on my yay! list: pulling thistles from the jumble of pine trees and junipers that form the woods in our backward and driving a gaggle of middle school boys across town to lacrosse practice. Trouble is, turns out, the world doesn’t really care. Imagination is not a value parents are too concerned with. Without imagination, life would terrible, only the concrete here and now, the right in front of our faces. Why teach our kids to work hard or be responsible if they can’t imagine the career they’ll one day love or the world they’ll inherit? Why teach obedience or thrift or perseverance if they can’t imagine the upsides of those often grueling disciplines? Imagination is a practical means for achieving and enabling these kinds of more commonly valued skills. After all, we teach kids to be selfless or tolerant by asking them to imagine what another person might be thinking or feeling, what it is to walk in their shoes. We teach self-expression through the various creative and imaginative forms of art, storytelling, and problem-solving. Without imagination, how can we experience the majesty and wonder and nearness of a mysterious God? God first fueled human imaginations when Adam and Eve were told the serpent’s head would be crushed, when God led the heir-less Abraham to the stars as a way to count his descendants and when God promised the Israelites a land flowing with flow with milk and honey. David tells us God plays a role in our heart’s (imagined) desires (Ps. And long before God set our imaginations loose, God’s was at work. And then God imagined creatures made in his image before he created us. Does that leave us asking questions of ourself when we want to be truthful, if it is oneself who is doing the applying??? When we imagine Jesus right there with us (as he is), our relationship with him deepens. When we imagine God hearing, considering our hard questions (as he does) as we fire them toward heaven, our prayer (or lament) life sharpens. When we imagine (I don’t like using this word at this point. the Holy Spirit fuelling our steps, shoring up our words (as he does), our courage strengthens. When we imagine, our lives and our faith take flight.