Yesterday was into listening to God — prayer priority #1!
Now, let’s talk a bit about imagination. Sunder is a pastor who wants to see the will of his listeners changed to conform to God’s will. This he has done through intellectual integrity, excellent delivery (I speak from experience) and a sincere desire to speak God’s words. And yet, there seems to be another approach to reaching the will of the hearer. As his brother-in-law, Ravi Zacharias, said, “Imagination has the power to bypass the intellect and get directly at the will.” (p. 16).
“If I was to be obedient to my calling as a preacher of the Word, it was not enough that I take God seriously as a theologian and offer my mind to Him; it wasn’t enough to take people seriously and listen carefully; I had to take words seriously and begin to exercise my imagination. I have never regretted that decision. Not that I have abandoned intellect. It will remain my primary forte. But it is being increasingly empowered by the imagination. (p. 17)
And so, two mental operations (as Krishnan quotes Eugene Peterson) work in tandem — Explanation and Imagination. Most of us have grown up with a strong dose of explanation. We pin things down so we can handle them, we define and restrict things to understandable chunks, we keep our feet on the ground so we can get work done. On the other hand, we may have missed imagination that opens us up so we grow into maturity — we worship, honor, trust and obey; we risk and expand our thinking, we lift our heads into the clouds and live with mystery.
I’m not one inclined to imagination, although when I let go I can certainly think outside the box, and even outside the warehouse! But, because these two mental faculties balance one another the great discipline of the mind is to discern where I am on the tetter-totter! When my prayers merely become recitation of the mundane, then I need to risk the impossible. And where my prayers become foolish flights of fancy I need to ground them in God’s Word which is past, present and future unchangeable!
Well, there’s a start. Looks like a good book.