The Imagination Factor
I am not a Greek philosopher nor a brilliant scientist – I’m have always been just a want-to-be writer who has always wanted to make sense of God and my imagination. It’s about that elusive muse – really. How can I tap into a powerful imagination?
Imagination is everything to me. It is a writer's tool. It gives writers shoes to travel into worlds unseen and unknown – and to create characters bigger than life. Imagination can turn a ordinary writer into a master. To a writer it resembles the quest for the Holy Grail.
But a need for an imagination isn’t confined to the creatives.
Did you realize that you use your imagination just to plan your day-to-day-life?
When you make your Christmas list, you are actually using your imagination. You visualize the person, visualize the perfect gift, visualize how to get it and visualize the person's face when you put that gift in their hands. Joy.
When you give someone directions, you see the route in your imagination.
It is quite possible that you are not even aware how often you are using your imagination in this way. It is something you do every day, many times a day.
It’s a tool for a better life. It’s an escape. It can enhance the moment. It can transform the ordinary into drama.
The truth is that it is a most useful tool in all walks of life. It is useful for the achievement of every goal. It is an essential skill for achieving any kind of success. It is the greatest tool of a visionary leader.
In fact, you cannot achieve a thing, unless you know what it is you want, and how you are going to do it.
Actually, right now as Sue and I are writing a book about crime, we are realizing how much imagination goes into the robbing of a bank.
For good or bad – we need imagination. Yet it isn’t functioning that well in our society.
Something happened to our imagination after the "snake" incident in the Garden of Eden, where we exercised our "free choice" option.
The Bible says. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. Genesis 6:5-6
This doesn’t sound like an all knowing, all powerful, super-sized God who can fix things at will. This sounds like a God facing a real dilemma. It’s a dilemma that comes up quite frequently through out the scripture
From the rest of the Bible we also realize why…. We discover that this God who created the world, is in actually a personality characterized by goodness and holiness. in a world dominated by “wicked imaginations,” holiness really puts moral limitations on his imagination.
The real question for us, who are have been infected by this wicked imagination, is how does God deal with us when our imaginations are incompatible with his?
Let me play that out…for you ... in our crucible.
There were two different sets of imaginations that collided 34 years ago when Candace disappeared on her way home from school. We as a family had used our imagination to plan a perfect weekend. Candace was expecting to spend time with her best friend. She had planned the week-end party for weeks.
Just down the street there was another imagination planning something entirely different – one filled with perverted sexual desire. I don’t’ even want to enter into the workings of that imagination – and give it a reality. I find it offensive, abhorrent and disgusting. I don’t think there are enough words in my vocabulary to express my distaste
These two imaginations collided – and we were the ones blindsided!
In this clash, we were forced to deal with the result, destruction and tragedy of the working out of this evil imagination.
Does that make us stupid? Perhaps. Could we have anticipated it? No!
In reality it makes us normal and good family going about their lives in a responsible way. It makes the other evil. It is the result of a wicked imagination.
The problem for us, is that in reacting to a negative imagination we are tempted to access that part of our imagination. To protect ourselves we find ourselves anticipating how someone who has a wicked imagination is going to act, and for that we have to enter into that part of our imagination as well. Perverted imaginations begets more perverted imaginations. But as humans, we have two imaginations – the imagination of God to create goodness, and the imagination of the wicked snake as described in Genesis.
The difference with a holy God – is that he has only one imagination. He doesn’t have access to the snake imagination. He is limited by his holiness that can't be compromised. Was he blindsided by a snake too?
I don't think we have the ability to truly comprehend this dynamic, - which make it mysterious and wonderful and frightening.
When God first saw the workings of mankind's evil imagination, he regretted even making us. From what I read in the rest of the Bible – there have been many times when he was tempted to wipe out his entire creation to stop these infected imaginations.
We don’t have that choice to opt out. We are caught in it.
Having been blindsided, my instinct was to hide our children – and my husband - under the bed and build a fierce wall around our house. I was also tempted to enter into a war of imaginations with the purpose to eliminate all sexual offenders. This kind of imagining can become wickedly obsessive.
Or I could follow God’s example – remove myself as much as I can from the negative imagination and exercise my imagination to pursue goodness.
I think it is called "overcoming evil with good." Romans 12:1
There is free choice – which means we can choose which imagination we will exercise.
The bonus is that God is on the side of goodness. His imagination is holy, good and loving. He will match his goodness with ours. I think his match is 1 - 70.
About the question - why did we keep our faith in God? - it is not hard to love, adore and have faith in a God, who might be limited, but who is good. I would rather align myself with a "good" God - than an all powerful "evil" God.
I remember the first time, I was actually able to convince someone that I loved a limited but holy God. She looked at me with huge eyes. "That's a scary concept... - a limited God?"
I agree.
Limited - but in a good way.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. – Kurt Vonnegut
Imagination is everything to me. It is a writer's tool. It gives writers shoes to travel into worlds unseen and unknown – and to create characters bigger than life. Imagination can turn a ordinary writer into a master. To a writer it resembles the quest for the Holy Grail.
But a need for an imagination isn’t confined to the creatives.
Did you realize that you use your imagination just to plan your day-to-day-life?
When you make your Christmas list, you are actually using your imagination. You visualize the person, visualize the perfect gift, visualize how to get it and visualize the person's face when you put that gift in their hands. Joy.
When you give someone directions, you see the route in your imagination.
It is quite possible that you are not even aware how often you are using your imagination in this way. It is something you do every day, many times a day.
It’s a tool for a better life. It’s an escape. It can enhance the moment. It can transform the ordinary into drama.
The truth is that it is a most useful tool in all walks of life. It is useful for the achievement of every goal. It is an essential skill for achieving any kind of success. It is the greatest tool of a visionary leader.
In fact, you cannot achieve a thing, unless you know what it is you want, and how you are going to do it.
Actually, right now as Sue and I are writing a book about crime, we are realizing how much imagination goes into the robbing of a bank.
For good or bad – we need imagination. Yet it isn’t functioning that well in our society.
Something happened to our imagination after the "snake" incident in the Garden of Eden, where we exercised our "free choice" option.
The Bible says. “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. Genesis 6:5-6
This doesn’t sound like an all knowing, all powerful, super-sized God who can fix things at will. This sounds like a God facing a real dilemma. It’s a dilemma that comes up quite frequently through out the scripture
From the rest of the Bible we also realize why…. We discover that this God who created the world, is in actually a personality characterized by goodness and holiness. in a world dominated by “wicked imaginations,” holiness really puts moral limitations on his imagination.
The real question for us, who are have been infected by this wicked imagination, is how does God deal with us when our imaginations are incompatible with his?
Let me play that out…for you ... in our crucible.
There were two different sets of imaginations that collided 34 years ago when Candace disappeared on her way home from school. We as a family had used our imagination to plan a perfect weekend. Candace was expecting to spend time with her best friend. She had planned the week-end party for weeks.
Just down the street there was another imagination planning something entirely different – one filled with perverted sexual desire. I don’t’ even want to enter into the workings of that imagination – and give it a reality. I find it offensive, abhorrent and disgusting. I don’t think there are enough words in my vocabulary to express my distaste
These two imaginations collided – and we were the ones blindsided!
In this clash, we were forced to deal with the result, destruction and tragedy of the working out of this evil imagination.
Does that make us stupid? Perhaps. Could we have anticipated it? No!
In reality it makes us normal and good family going about their lives in a responsible way. It makes the other evil. It is the result of a wicked imagination.
The problem for us, is that in reacting to a negative imagination we are tempted to access that part of our imagination. To protect ourselves we find ourselves anticipating how someone who has a wicked imagination is going to act, and for that we have to enter into that part of our imagination as well. Perverted imaginations begets more perverted imaginations. But as humans, we have two imaginations – the imagination of God to create goodness, and the imagination of the wicked snake as described in Genesis.
The difference with a holy God – is that he has only one imagination. He doesn’t have access to the snake imagination. He is limited by his holiness that can't be compromised. Was he blindsided by a snake too?
I don't think we have the ability to truly comprehend this dynamic, - which make it mysterious and wonderful and frightening.
When God first saw the workings of mankind's evil imagination, he regretted even making us. From what I read in the rest of the Bible – there have been many times when he was tempted to wipe out his entire creation to stop these infected imaginations.
We don’t have that choice to opt out. We are caught in it.
Having been blindsided, my instinct was to hide our children – and my husband - under the bed and build a fierce wall around our house. I was also tempted to enter into a war of imaginations with the purpose to eliminate all sexual offenders. This kind of imagining can become wickedly obsessive.
Or I could follow God’s example – remove myself as much as I can from the negative imagination and exercise my imagination to pursue goodness.
I think it is called "overcoming evil with good." Romans 12:1
There is free choice – which means we can choose which imagination we will exercise.
The bonus is that God is on the side of goodness. His imagination is holy, good and loving. He will match his goodness with ours. I think his match is 1 - 70.
About the question - why did we keep our faith in God? - it is not hard to love, adore and have faith in a God, who might be limited, but who is good. I would rather align myself with a "good" God - than an all powerful "evil" God.
I remember the first time, I was actually able to convince someone that I loved a limited but holy God. She looked at me with huge eyes. "That's a scary concept... - a limited God?"
I agree.
Limited - but in a good way.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. – Kurt Vonnegut
RSS Feed
