Imagine!
Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
– Psalm 37:4
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You open Your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing.
– Psalm 145:16
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For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith – that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
– Ephesians 3:14-21
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Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
– Hebrews 11:1
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Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
– Matthew 18:3
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Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
– Matthew 6:19-21
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Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
– John 16:24b
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The imagination has a mighty and most real and necessary function in the life of faith. ‘We are saved by hope,’ but we cannot hope for what we cannot or do not apprehend. It is written, ‘He shall fulfill all your desires,’ and ‘your heart’ (i.e. your desire) ‘shall live for ever.’ Every felicity, however dimly divined by the imagination as to its form, shall be fulfilled beyond thought and in a form more perfect than we know how to picture to ourselves, where, for them that believe, good things are laid up, ‘beyond all that they know how to desire or imagine.’ We cannot desire any good which is not a reality and a destined part of our eternity, if we attain, and our imaginations of felicity are both samples and promises.
The great praise of a contemplative life is that it is the seed-time of the celestial harvest. A true contemplative will receive into his heart and apprehension in half an hour more of these inspired initiatory pledges, which are seeds as well as promises, than another will acquire in a whole lifetime; and the harvest will be in proportion to the sowing. The more extravagant and audacious your demands the more pleasing to God will be your prayer; for His joy is in giving; but He cannot give that for which you have not acquired a capacity; and desire is capacity.
– Coventry Patmore
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O, beloved!
You know how we like to imagine?! Like giddy little children, we dream of setting up our own homestead, complete with a quaint cabin, outdoor fire pit, chickens and goats, a sprawling vegetable garden, finely split kindling stacked up neatly by the back door, our reading chair in the corner of the room near the wood-burning stove, our bed made up with soft pillows and our woolen blanket, our bodies intertwined and Love and Glory and Pleasure made manifest, my love? (hopeful)
For a long time, I thought it was just us playing pretend, beloved. But…’ya know what?! (delighted)
It’s not.
It’s not pretend at all. (solemn, strong)
Do you see?! ‘The imagination has a mighty and most real and necessary function in the life of faith.’ We have to dream and imagine and desire and long for and ‘play at’ our hearts’ deepest yearnings in order to participate in a life of faith, my love! (triumphant) I never knew before now, but…I think that’s part of why we’re here, beloved – to dream dreams, like little children – to think them and prepare for them and act them out here, if you will (in a respectful and obedient way, of course) – in order that He might know just what will most bless us, what we most desire There, my darling! (rejoicing over this new revelation, desperately wanting to share in it Together)
He wants to satisfy our desires, my love - with the opening of His very own hand! I think He wants us to delight in Him and wait upon Him as He crafts and creates and ‘customizes,’ if you will, our very own bit of heaven – just as we imagine it to be, except a gazillion times better, beloved! He promises to fill us with all the fullness of God, and God Himself is Love – we will be filled to overflowing with His Love There! But we cannot see any of this clearly now, beloved. No. (gentle) Rather, He wants us to rest in the assurance of things hoped for. It’s like we’re little children, building a ‘home’ for ourselves out of little twigs and bits of grass in the backyard, under the watchful eye of our Father – experimenting, learning, dreaming – mixing some acorns and sand and leaves in an old cooking pot…but the thought never crosses our minds that He’s already purchased (or perhaps, built for us) our real, live ‘dream home,’ but glorified and perfected as only He can do!
Yes, we ask Him for what we want, beloved – we plead with Him. But we’re also to ‘store up for ourselves’ treasures in heaven, yes? But how, you ask?! I think, perhaps, it’s in part, by imagining our treasures There! All we long for is with Him, and so…our desires, our yearnings, our deepest longings…they’re never meant to be fulfilled right here, right now; our treasures, our deepest longings are always meant to be satisfied There, when He comes, when He speaks the Word, beloved. (gentle)
What if, beloved, this time just now truly is ‘the seed-time of the celestial harvest?!’ What if now is the time we sow the seeds of all we desire and hope for that He might, in due time, grow each seed we have planted here via our imaginations into a fruitful, celestial, eternal Harvest – designed particularly and perfectly for us, my love?! (hopeful) What if the more we dream and pour out and entrust Him with, the greater our reward when we see Him face to face?! What if all this time is just about ‘expanding our capacity for desire’ in order that He might give us more and more and more of just the things we want, beloved?! (amazed, intrigued at the possibility) After all, He delights to give good things to those who love Him just as I delight to give good things to you, beloved, always. And when I give good things to you, I want to give you just the right things - the things that please you the very most and bring you the very highest joy and pleasure, beloved! Perhaps He means to do the same, beloved. (suddenly solemn, reverent)
If there is any truth to this, beloved (and I think one might quite reasonably argue there could be, based upon His Word) then all our dreams, our desires, our ‘plans for when He gives the Word’…perhaps they are serving an important purpose here, my love. (gentle) For in imagining Together our greatest hopes and longings, He may well be taking those hopes and longings and desires, and using them - meager and limited as they are - as ‘raw materials’ of sorts to create for us our ideal Life and Love, Together, There, my love. (tender) All that we so desperately want now, handmade There by our good and gracious Father - transformed into something more glorious than we could have ever asked for or imagined, beloved. But skillfully utilizing all the elements that have been floating around in our heads and our hearts this whole time to create something Beautiful and New though with echoes of our lives and longings here, yes?! (hopeful)
We will trust Him at His Word, beloved. We will come to Him, humbly, weakly, as little children who love to dream of what Life will be like when they are fully Grown, trusting Him to take our every longing and satisfy us, as only He can. (gentle) We will wait upon Him Together with eager expectation - now and always. And we will never stop imagining what Good and Glory He might choose to give us when we seek His honor and glory above all else!