Photo by Cottonbro Studio from Pexels

One of the most delightful things about childhood is imagination. It shows up everywhere as a child begins to explore the world first with their mouths, then hands, and gradually hands and knees. They take risks we would never imagine as adults. They learn out to escape cribs, baby gates, and more without awareness of danger or fear until a fall happens. Even then in their play we watch creations of all sorts designed often by the boxes the expensive toys came in.

Little wonder how much children enjoy stories at a time they are learning the basics and their imaginations are fertile with ideas. Perhaps that is why even as adults we often recall stories we heard during those beginning years of our lives. 

Photo by Cottonbro Studio from Pexels

Imagination doesn’t really die but as we grow up and add formal education to our lives, many of us find it harder to believe in the seemingly impossible. Some of us put what seem like unrealistic possibilities in a box on the back of the shelf and never risk exploring the possible of them. Of course some of us don’t allow anything to stop us and go on to discover electricity, polio vaccine, how to harness the atom, and many more.

What makes the difference? Often it is what feeds our imagination and what we are encouraged to do with it. 

In this time in the world we are bombarded with data constantly. Some is good and some is not. If we are drawn into the darker things, we can become a Darth Vader of Star Wars fame whose evil destroyed rather than blessed. Evil is waiting for the opportunity to inhabit any tiny inch of our imagination and can then make sure it grows. The result is devastating.

Photo by Timur Weber from Pexels

“The moment we permit evil to control our imaginations, dictate what we think, and shape our responses, we at the same time become incapable of seeing the good and the true and the beautiful.”  

Eugene Peterson

Choose any story you like and you will find a hero and a villain. What makes the difference? You may think of multiple things but it comes down to what they believe and feed their imagination. If they see only bad and dark things, they believe in little and their hearts are empty of love.

Violence and hatred have been with us since the beginning but the majority of us used to hate it and the villains it created and applauded the heroes in the stories we heard, told, and watched unfold on our screens. But when evil has even a tiny crack to sliver in, it can grow and as Eugene Peterson says, we then can become incapable to seeing good. 

Now our stories involve almost only violence whether news or entertainment. Games for children are filled with it and hideous images race across screens and pages. Can we not see what we put into us is what we will become? We have been nudged into not believing in anyone or anything.

Photo by Pixabay from Pexels

One of my favorite stories from childhood is the one about David and Goliath. It’s a heroic tale most are familiar with. A huge battle is raging and the biggest villain (Goliath) of the Philistines taunts King Saul and his army to send out someone to fight him. No one volunteers for that job after seeing his size and the size of his sword and shield. They’re all looking at what they know. 

Then David who was likely a teenager at the time (not old enough to be conscripted  into the army) comes with some food for his older brothers. He’s shocked no one has accepted Goliath’s challenge. His heart is that of s shepherd boy, full of protection for those who need it, surrounded by God’s starry night skies and all manner of things reminding him of good. He knows Goliath is no match for the God in his heart. But he is not a swordsman. He uses a sling to protect his flock. His imagination considers how he could use stones of the right size and shape in his sling to take down Goliath. His imagination fueled by the love of God in his heart causes him to volunteer and as we know, he becomes the hero of the story. Fear did not rule David’s heart or the day.

Picture the scene with the masterful words of Eugene Peterson:

“Until David walked into the Valley of Elah and knelt by that brook, the only two options seemed to be bullying Might or a fearful Right. Take your choice: brutal Goliath or anxious Saul.  

David kneeling, unhurried and calm, opened up another option: God, God’s ways, God’s salvation. How do we so easily lose sight of this, lose awareness of God? Why would any of us in our right minds exchange a God-blessed imagination capable of ‘seeing the invisible’ for a mess of statistics. But however it happens, David kneeling at the brook leads our recovery.”

Eugene Peterson

David had a “prayer-saturated imagination.”  

Shouldn’t we also?

Photo by Pam Ecrement