02/11/2023
Do you focus and contemplate on God each day, and in everything you do? Is your imagination being used to reveal the Lord in every circumstance and activity in your life? These are the questions we will consider today, and we will see that our imagination is the portion of our belief that allows us to see beyond what our eyes can show us; imagination is the key to hope, and faith. We are about to examine the concept of spiritual imagining, which is not fantasy at all, but a very real key to the doorway into a world beyond our physical senses.
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.”
Isaiah 26:3 KJV
I was driving into work one grey wintery morning, and came to a stop at a traffic light. As I sat there looking about, I watched the trees being blown by the wind, and noticed that their uppermost branches were like tiny fingers reaching for heaven. This led me to realize that the motion of the very trees themselves were reminding me of the swaying body of a saint in fervent prayer... I was overcome by the spirit and began to pray with the movement of those trees, and my day took on a new dimension of faith.
When we walk through life with little expectation of meeting God, banishing Him to some faraway place as we live out our physical days, we miss his most incredibly rich lessons of faith, and the spiritual aspect of our consciousness is robbed of joy. There is nothing we do or say, no experience that we have, that He doesn't want to be a part of. He enriches us in the minutia of our lives just as certainly as He does the grandest events of faith.
“Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.”
l 23:23-24 KJV
Oswald Chambers wrote about his of looking for God in creation, and we are meant to do the same. Chambers expressed this thought when he wrote these words...
"Learn to associate ideas worthy of God with all that happens in nature - sunrises and the sunsets, the sun and the stars, the changing seasons, and your imagination will never be at the mercy of your impulses, but always be at the service of God." - Oswald Chambers
The danger we can face in seeking God in nature and the Lord’s creation comes when we begin to worship the creation over the creator, so this distinction should always be maintained… God is worthy of our worship, but His creation is not. Creation merely gives us a glimpse at who the Creator is... a sense of his character and ability; it is not something to be worshiped.
When I watched my children, and even now, as I enjoy my grandchildren, I am always amazed at the love and ability that God exhibits to me through them, and how it shows me wonderful truths in my own life. But not all imagined truths are without pain, and when I pass a simple cross on the edge of a highway, I am struck by the heartbreak of my losses through the suffering and sacrifice of Jesus. Love, it surrounds us, but without the suffering and calamity of life we lose our ability to appreciate its enormity, and the depth of God’s love for us... we have no perspective.
Having said this, there is not only amazement in birth, but in death as well. There is love present in each of these experiences, but we must imagine it... we need to feel the Father in the joy of life’s arrival, and also in the eternity of its departure. It is just easier for us to endure the joy and happiness of new creation, and so hard to choke back the tears and sorrow of separation. However, God is present in both, and is equally loving and grand... His Son Jesus has secured that love, even unto death.
So as we travel through life, and move from conception towards death, there is nothing that can separate us from God... except our own lack of imagination and concentration. He is in every bud that bursts forth and every leaf that falls; He is in the swaying trees and the tiny branches that rise up like fingers pointing to heaven. All that remains is for us to realize that He is there, and meet Him in our every thought, and breath.
Prayer:
Father, I pray this morning that you remove the shingles and darkness from my eyes, and let me see you in everything that surrounds me. Lord, keep me focused on you and never let my imagination fail to find you in even the most insignificant of life's events. Let my every breath magnify you; from my first to my last. Let all those who know and love me realize that I offer every breath I breathe to you, and that when my last is exhaled, that it will not have been taken from me, but offered up to you. Love it is who you are, joy, it is my life; and grace, it is your gift. If every soul could come to this realization, seeing and experiencing you in all things, then their imaginations will have helped them find you in the sum of their lives, and in all of your creation.
Rich Forbes