IMAGINATION AND DESIRE
We cannot desire what we cannot imagine. Imagination does not require comprehensive knowledge; a brief, luring understanding will suffice. In fact, imagination thrives when knowledge reaches its limit. Conversely, mastery of knowledge does little to invoke imagination; instead, a certain hunger and curiosity to see and experience more foster fuller imagination. Eugene Peterson translates Matthew 5:6 this way, “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God.”
A hunger or a good appetite for God creates humility of unknowing, a poverty of heart and mind. This humility becomes a fertile ground for imagination to thrive. Life continuously cultivates hunger and an “appetite” for God, which sparks a more intense and healthy imagination of intimacy and union with God. The grace of God allows us to taste and see that God is good and to grow that hunger. Recognizing this hunger and actually tasting God’s goodness are one and the same. This is also the idea behind seeing God dimly. Because we see God dimly, we desire more of God. Furthermore, the ability to see God dimly is itself a grace at work.
The moments in life that grant us access to God, through seeing (dimly) and tasting, are, more often than not, not over-the-top or earth-shattering events, but rather through soft, shy whispers of life. During the previous week, I gifted my books to two different individuals. The introductions and connections happened through mutual friends and acquaintances. Both were grateful to receive my book, which humbled me. One is a young cancer patient, who is also a father of 9-year-old and 7-year-old daughters and a husband. As an aspiring actor and radio host, he has been fighting cancer for close to ten years. His long curly hair, down to his shoulder, looks natural and fitting. His vocal cord was significantly damaged due to radiation treatments, and he lost his voice for about three years. Now, there is a slight hope of regaining his voice. He whispers as he talks and is one of the most grateful people I have ever met.
I found out he is our neighbor, almost within walking distance, in fair weather. What grounded him during those years of forced silence was building his own house with his two able hands, step by step and day by day. He imagined a perfect home for his family, and the imagination fed his desire, you might say. He proudly showed a picture of his beautiful home. Every time I pass by his house, I offer a quick prayer. I have joined others in praying for him and his family that God would intervene. We will know in two months whether his vocal cord can be healed or not . .
A close family member of his has been telling him, like the modern-day Job’s friends, that God would heal him if he went to seminary and did God’s work, as his wife joined us a bit later and chimed in. Their togetherness warmed my heart because I could sense that they were one in the Spirit and learning how to live their life forward. Still, such a comment breaks my heart for him and makes me angry to no end. The anger and frustration also carry a layer of compassion, as I know I could have been one of those zealous family members in the past. Over the years, one of my revelations about God has been the shift from viewing God as a small-minded God demanding our absolute obedience to seeing Him as a generous, big-hearted, compassionate God who loves nothing more and nothing less than our love — even if it is incomplete and conditional — and returning that love to God.
Thankfully, he refuses to be imprisoned by such talk of a sure God. I imagine my God who loves to “set the burdened and battered free” and who loves each of us to discover how God created us to be. I desire to experience more of this kind of God and share far and wide how wonderful our God is.