Imagination

I could spin a web if I tried,” said Wilbur.⁹

In childlike innocence, Wilbur imagines he can make a spider web like Charlotte’s. Impossible, of course. Yet we can’t help but smile at his exuberance in exercising “the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.”¹⁰ Fern, too, possesses a large and vivid imagination. She could imagine potential in Wilbur whereas Mr. Arable could not. She hears things adults cannot fathom. Charlotte’s imagination is at work when she makes Wilbur seem special, thus preserving his life, in spite of the old sheep’s predictions.

Jesus could imagine potential in Peter when Peter was far from being a rock. After His resurrection, Jesus fixed breakfast by the shore for His disciples. Jesus took Peter aside and spoke new life, identity, and purpose to one who felt only shame. He could see beauty in Peter despite the betrayal because He loved him and affirmed his value. Imagination can be life-giving when we imagine as possible good things in and for others as well as in and for ourselves.

God imagined the universe and with His word, He brought forth worlds and declared them good. People, made in His image, also have the gift of powerful imagination, but apart from God it all too often leads to dark results. With the fall of man into depravity, and swept up by the desire to be God as described in the Babel account, the collective human imagination became a source of evil: “No evil thing they imagine they can do will be impossible for them” (Gen. 11:6 AMP).

Growth in faith reverses the bent toward evil imagination and harnesses creative power for good.

“O Lord God of Abraham, . . . keep this forever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people and prepare their heart unto thee” (1 Chron. 29:18 KJV).

Prayer: Grant me a redeemed imagination in which Your Word ignites my imagination and so it aligns with faith. But cast down any vain imaginations in me! Don’t let me imagine goals You have not assigned for me.