Before God ever spoke the first word on the first day of creation, He had an image in His mind of what it would be and what it would be like. He had a firm and clear image in mind as the focus of his attention. He knew it from the first light beam to the point of crossing the temporal line to the imperial line, terra firma, to transition into the eternal.
He knew Himself and thus what he wanted to be surrounded by and with. He knew what it would take to get from nothing to the fulfillment of the image He had in mind. I was a part of that image and so were you. He was not surprised by either our arrival or the rail we traveled on as we made our way from nonexistence to a functioning organism living in community with similar organisms.
That’s why God said to himself, “Let’s make humans in our image.” He imagined us, and then he began to create and cultivate. You and I were firmly in the Creator’s imagination of His creation before we were ever a pulsating mass of biochemistry.
The difference between humans and oak trees or chinchillas is that their creation became genetically fixed when they arrived. Like trees and chinchillas, humans begin the same way: with one cell becoming two, then four, and so on. The most significant difference between us and the trees and chinchillas is that, for the latter, nothing really changed beyond the first cell division. Humans, on the other hand, have this remarkable ball of specialized cells that are capable of self-teaching and, yes, learning to imagine. And like our Creator, in a very scaled-down version, we can bring what we imagine into reality.
A chinchilla cannot imagine a different life for itself. The first chinchilla did not live much differently from a contemporary chinchilla. Chinchillas do not really have a progressive history. Each is its own history.
When I write, I often have only a vague idea of what will appear on my laptop screen. Each word or phrase causes the next word or phrase to appear. I begin with an idea that I “see as through a glass darkly” (to use a phrase made famous by our brother Paul). The final product that you read is much shorter than my first draft. The backspace button is the most used on my keyboard. Then, followed closely by the delete button.
All that I imagine is not worth reading and most often is quite confusing, or just downright stupid. I have a friend, GW, who takes her pickaxe to it when I think I have completed the task.
Here is where all this is heading: At least once a week, I hear someone respond to a dilemma a third person is facing with, “I can’t even imagine.”
That’s not true! We can imagine the circumstances. We just don’t want to. And I don’t either.
I have come to believe that we live the life we imagined. Imagination is self-activating. If you imagine a lonely, isolated, scarcity-driven life, that’s what you will have. If you have an image of status, influence, and affluence, that’s what you will likely have. At least in the peer group you hang with, those you get close to.
I know those are two very wide extremes. (Stay with me here.) On that quality-of-life continuum, we are each limited to the reach of our imagination. The trouble is, we are a part of God’s original imagination. His imagination trumps our imagination. We were created by Him to enjoy the realization of His imagination. Ours will leave us short of fulfilment and dependent upon our fragile strength and creativity to maintain our personal image of life.
Our ability to imagine a life for ourselves is limited by our life span. When our bodies give out on us, so do our most spectacular or dismal imaginations. God’s, our Father in Heaven, imagination lives as long as He does. Conversely, our imagination lives only as long as we do.
So, whose imagination will you choose to move toward, yours or His? Isn’t that a great question, filled with hope and opportunity!
“But as it is written, ‘What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived’—God has prepared these things for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9, CSB).
“For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him!” (Isaiah 64:4, NLT).
Photo – One of my walnut bowls.
Baldwin Heirlooms 