toys.

Do you think the reason why it’s such a sentimental experience letting go of childhood toys has something to do with the part of us that innately knows that being childlike is a necessary part of our humanity all the way through? Movies like Toy Story or Narnia or stories like Winnie the Pooh and so forth call forth those imaginings.

I remember when I was somewhere between 11 and 14 and I had made the decision to throw away all my toys. To “grow up” more or less. Two trash bags full of transformers, GI Joe’s, stuffed animals and various who’s its and what nots. Ironically, other kids on my blog came by and wanted to rummage through the bag for my toys because they wanted them. They made a mess of my yard leaving the unwanted things strewn about. But how visual a representation of the choice I had made. What I had decided to be childish and of my past, others, younger than me immediately valued in a much greater way. The irony was, I made a choice because it was what I was “supposed” to do. To grow up, but my imagination would have none of it. Instead of toys, now the imaginary world had no probs but would be envisioned in my mind. I would watch cartoons like Batman and immediately pretend I was a superhero, running around my house imagining scenarios where I would have to fight the bad guys or rescue someone. No toys though, nope, too old for that. Instead I would act like a little kid. Those imaginings became more adult like in some ways over the years, but my mind would not lessen its hold on the great world of what could be.

I’m glad my imagination never died, even though it was so expansive and detailed and well “childish?” I’ve thought sometimes that I should write a series of books like Narnia or Lord of the Rings, because I’ve managed to create whole worlds in my mind. What I’ve come to realize is that this “imagination” is simply my capacity to contain the unseen world. What do I mean by that? I’ve learned a little about the spiritual world in the past couple years at Bethel. I say, “a little” because I’m sure the spiritual world is way bigger than our physical world. So perhaps I should say, “very little”. But in that glimpse I have seen the weirdness, the imaginative, the glorious, the beautiful, and I am amazed. Our imaginations are not just imaginations, but containers by which we can relate with God and spiritual things. I believe God speaks to us through imagination. At first it seemed awkward, prophesying to others from pictures or words that appeared in my head (much like imagination), but the fruit from those things, the details coming to pass simply testified to the reality that this stuff is real. Telling a young lady in a good amount of detail what would happen when she leads worship for the first time in class and it all happening just like I said or should I say as the Lord told me to say through words coming through my mouth and pictures, scriptures and words appearing in my container (my mind, my imagination). How cool is that? Seeing an angel in my mind’s eye (hard to explain), yet not with my eyes. The angel giving something to my friend sitting in my living room. I start telling that friend what the angel is doing, sometimes the angel would nod his head “No” if I got it wrong, or “Yes” when I got what he was doing correctly. After everything I said, my friend said I basically read everything he had written in his journal that morning. But I didn’t even know he kept a journal. My container was able to see something I otherwise would have never even noticed. God works through our imagination. I’ve heard stories of a student at my school drawing a box on the street with chalk and having people step in it and they would get healed of whatever ailed them. What is that? Where is that in the Bible? God doesn’t limit us to a book, He’s bigger than that book. The book is the ship in the ocean. It guides us in His presence, it keeps us going in the right direction, but He is the ocean.

I’m so excited to see the depths of His glory in the ocean of His presence. To go deeper and deeper, to let my container get bigger and bigger for Him to speak to me and through me. The best part of it all, is catching fish. He can use these things to reveal the secrets of peoples hearts to them. The callings and passions that they have, that the Lord they don’t even know, gave them.

So here’s to that childlike faith God has given us a capacity to have. Let us embrace it, listen to it, use it, never forget it for even a hundred years…

image credit: http://linedpaper.tumblr.com/