"Ho! Everyone who thirsts, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, come, buy and eat. Yes come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price." Isaiah 55:1
Do not let a failure of imagination rob you from what is spoken here. Like Peter Pan in the following clip he was hungry and thirsty but his inability to imagine left him parched. Only when he began to envision the possibilities set before him, did he partake in the complete satisfaction and joy that was his to behold. Opening his mind to dream BIG, brought him and the others around him great pleasure.
I desire the water that satisfies my spirit. The salvation that is available to me thru the sweet blood of Jesus Christ, which brings complete satisfaction and joy, and I can have it without paying a single thing, because it is freely given; I only have to believe. I choose to imagine. . .
Two movies have profoundly affected my life and the way I see things; "Big Fish" and "Neverwas"
During the viewing of these films, I was captivated by what transpired on the screen. So caught up was I, in the lives of the characters, that I felt woven right into the midst of their stories. By the time I reached the end, I was undone and my heart overflowed with a raw emotion I did not understand. Why have these movies affected me, the way they have? My family has watched them, and thought they were entertaining, but they did not seem to experience the same thing I did during the viewing. I have puzzled over this conundrum as my heart has yet to answer me.
So I questioned God. . . and I believe He showed me why.
Both movies dealt with a very vivid and active imagination as well as a lack of imagination, or perhaps a better phrase would be, a failure of imagination, on the part of one or more of its characters. In each, there was a person who seemed to live life BIG and who believed themselves to be very remarkable individuals where the sky was the limit and nothing was impossible.
In my own childhood I had BIG dreams and giant ambitions and it seemed to me that the sky was the limit!
Some of the BIG dreams I had went as follows: I wanted to grow up and wear fancy gowns like Ginger Rogers and stand next to a grand piano, while singing a love song to a beautiful room crowded with people, or how about this one, I wanted to be the first woman in outer space? Then there was the time that I wanted to become the first female president of the United States as well as travel around the oceans of the world with Jacques Ives Cousteau, exploring The Great Barrier Reef, underwater canyons, and whale songs.
Every day was a new possibility for greatness! I used to dream about living life large all the time. Standing doing dishes at the kitchen sink, I day dreamed that some handsome knight on a white horse would ride up to the window above the sink and smile at me, and I would leave the dishes and my sister who was drying them behind, to travel with my Prince on his mighty stallion, to some romantic castle on a hill, while his pet deer Darby, frolicked behind us all the way there, and then later, seated on a magic carpet in front of a fireplace, my prince and me would sing John Denver songs together. Oh bliss. . .
There were also the ones about my ten speed bicycle, that was secretly an Indy car, and I was the first woman driver to win the Daytona 500 as I sped around and around our circle drive, imagining car crashes and spin outs before I triumphantly crossed the finish line, with my back tire burning hot from the great speed I had kept up in order to win the race and receive my trophy.
I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I use to lie on the ground looking up at the stars and into space and day dream of alien encounters, ones where I was taken to other planets to help them resolve some world issue, only to then return home with some great cure for the common cold, like chewing 13 pieces of Bubble Yum bubble gum while jumping up and down on one leg and scratching your elbow.
Laugh if you like but all that I am writing is true! I lived life dreaming big and always believing that whatever we set our hearts to, could be accomplished. I believe that lying dormant in many of us is a unique gift and the ability to leave our mark on this world, in a very profound and impacting way.
This is why I sobbed watching the movies above. I have had a failure of imagination. Life has settled in and I have forgotten what it is like to dream. . .
A scripture comes to mind right now that seems to pop out at me, Matthew 18:3, "And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like
little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."
When I was a child my imagination was huge and constantly moving, from the monster in my closet to riding in a motorcade up to the White House, for dinner with the President and First Lady. It could take hold and grasp onto ideas that seemed far out and wild, but I was full of life, living in that place of constant possibility. Then I grew up and the wonder and excitement of dreaming gave way to the reality and responsibility of bills, a job, and a family.
So you've got this man named Jesus, who comes into world just totally living life BIG, and how do I know this you ask? Just look in the gospel of John chapter six for starters.
It starts out with a great multitude following Him because they had seen Him perform signs on those who were diseased. You know, kind of like my common cold cure day dream, doing something that will impact others. Well, He's got this humanitarian thing going on here, and literally thousands of people follow Him out to a mountain side. He then asks Philip, one of His disciples, "Where can we buy bread, that these may eat?"
And Philip has a failure of imagination.
Now don't get your panties in a bunch but I can just hear him kind of dissing Jesus, like, "Hello. . .it would take about 50,000 dollars to feed this many people and that is with them only getting a nibble. Like, knock, knock, knock. Is anybody home in there. What are ya thinking Jesus?"
Then you have Andrew, one of the first disciples of Jesus and a former follower of John the Baptist who is, in my opinion, definitely a man of imagination but with some hesitancy. I am now going to mimic the surfer turtle voice from Finding Nemo. "Ah Jesus, there is a little dude here, who has five loaves of awesome barely bread and a couple of minnows. . .but your probably thinking, that is so little for so many, right?"
So Jesus has encountered a failure of imagination, but He also senses the hope in Andrew's question, because He knows that Andrew is a dreamer and since dreamers tend to live life BIG, Jesus moves in a BIG way here, feeding the 5000 not just a nibble like Philip imagined but until they have eaten their fill, and then He had them gather up the fragments that remain so that nothing was lost. The disciples gathered up twelve baskets filled with fragments of barely loaves which were left over by those who had eaten. Imagination allows big things to happen in your life and in the lives of those around you.
So we go a little further down to verse 35 where Jesus starts telling the multitude that chased him to Capernaum which was on the other side of the sea from where they had been fed and eaten their fill, that "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall not hunger and he who believes in Me shall not thirst." Go to verse 54 and he continues, "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day." Sounds a little vampire-y to me, but hey I am not the only one who had a failure to imagine here, in verse 60 and 66 it says, "Therefore many of His disciples when they heard this, said, "This is a hard saying, who can understand it? From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him nor more."
This is why I believe that Jesus says unless we change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of God. Because eye has not seen, nor ear heard all that God has prepared and kept ready for those who love Him. We need to live in that place of imagination and possibilities again to be able to imagine the truth in The Greatest Story Ever Told and to see our lives intertwined with His from the beginning of time into eternity. We cannot try and reason this with our minds we have to feel it in our hearts and live in a place of excited anticipation of what today and tomorrow holds. To know that the impossible is an option, especially in Him who has the greatest imagination of all.
When asked by Jesus if they too wanted to go away after they had heard His sayings, Simon Peter stepped toward the man he had walked on water with, fed thousands with, seen people healed with, and answered, "Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Peter chose to be like a child and imagine. . .
It was a strange sound. The best way to describe it would be to imagine a giant, sucking air thru a straw for about 8 seconds, and then exhaling out his mouth with the force of a jet engine. It stopped us in mid stride and in unison we turned, our eyes seeking what our ears were hearing.
The mid afternoon October sun warmed us as we hiked along on state land; The Molasses River Flooding Number Three, in Gladwin County Michigan, to be exact. The grand beauty of the 80 degree fall day, with its eruption of red, orange, yellow and rust canopies, amidst hints of green, seemed to scream at us from the tree line, “Look at me, look at me!” causing our hearts to skip and be thankful.
We were smack dab in the middle of what, we Michiganders call, Indian summer, and we were taking the opportunity to enjoy nature in some of her finest attire. Days like today are what keep us going, during the long winter months that would soon be upon us but for one more week; we could don our shorts and tees and again be carefree in our pursuits of simple pleasures.
Water fowl, frogs, muskrat, chickadees, and turkey buzzards were the creatures that made an appearance on our journey that day and each sighting was special in its own way, but it was the peculiar rush of wind sound, which has stayed, in the forefront of our thoughts.
Heading back to where we had parked the car, about a half a mile or so away, we halted, surprised by the unexpected loud noise, coming from behind us. The hair crept up on the nape of our necks as we turned, because we knew there would be something there, but what?
Nothing. . .Nothing was there, but the sound and then in the middle of the lake where a shrub hedgerow stood, it appeared as if someone with a large spatula had just pushed the taller of the shrubs over on their sides, in the same direction, with leaves spiraling up in the air as if caught in a vortex, and then the noise disappeared as suddenly as it had arrived, and the shrubs bounced back up and stood still.
“What was that?” I questioned.
My husband looked at me, shaking his head, “Perhaps a whirlwind of some sort, let’s watch the trees across the lake to see what they do.”
Glancing in the direction that the wind sound had moved to, we stared across the lake and viewed, zilch. No movement what-so-ever. In our bewilderment we searched the sky overhead, shaking our heads at what we had just witnessed, though we had no clue to what that was.
My husband peered at me, “It is almost like an invisible jet just took off out of here.”
“That is exactly what I was thinking, but more of an alien thought crept into my mind.”
Laughing, we kidded that maybe we had been abducted while out here, “What time is it?” we joked.
I snapped a couple of pics of the hedgerow, for good measure and then we continued our trek to the car. I was relieved to find that no weird amount of time had lapsed, and we laughed all over again, but the bizarre occurrence has not been far from our thoughts.
Was the military testing some new secret jet? Did we just experience an odd rush of wind, swamp gas, or was there an invisible unidentified flying object, lurking in the middle of the state land and we just happened upon it in our pursuit of simple pleasures? We may never know but the experience has left my imagination just bursting at the seams and maybe now, yours too.
My relationship with God is one long joyful journey. The joys are not always seen at first glance and I may have to walk down many paths, before seeing the joy that was hidden in the journey, because some paths are sweet like chocolate; full of flavor, while others are bitter to my tongue, but always for my good as He makes all things work together for my good.
Thank You O' Lord for all that I walk through on this journey of living. The paths I take are significant as they shape me into who I am, the good, the bad, and the ugly, but Your mercies are new every morning and I have the opportunity, each and every day to begin anew through You. Amen
