Faith & Imagination, Pt 4--The Opportunity of Faith-filled Imagination

I almost started this post with the title "The Opportunity of Imagination-filled Faith." Take a couple of seconds to think about that if you don't mind. If faith STARTS with imagination, then there is no foundation for the faith. This leads to a second form of "failure of imagination": heresy.

There is zero room for imagination in inventing doctrine. Many of the New Testament writers warn of false prophets. These false prophets use their imagination to create a false faith. So if I were to talk about the opportunity of imagination-filled faith, I would have to address the problem of heresy. I MIGHT do that in a future post, but for now, I'm going to stay with the article's title.

The opportunity of faith-filled imagination is enormous. The most direct and obvious result is all of the faith-inspired arts. Art becomes worship when it is the result of faith. Even DOUBTFUL art is sacred--set apart by mystery and delayed revelation--and instructive to the seeker.

Think of the books of Job and Ecclesiastes as somewhat dark, doubtful works of faith-inspired art. In both books the human struggle with the invisible nature of God is evident and comforting. God's inspiration of Scripture INCLUDES the day-to-day struggles. At the bottom of both of these books is the sign of relief that God really is out there and really does provide meaning to life.

The American slave spiritual songs are precisely the same. They express a longing for the lifting of oppression:

"Deep river, my home is over Jordan
Deep river, Lord, I want to cross over into campground
Lord, I want to cross over into campground
Lord, I want to cross over into campground
Lord, I want to cross over into campground

Oh, chillun
Oh, don’t you want to go, to that gospel feast
That promised land, that land where all is peace?
Walk into heaven, and take a seat
And cast my crown at Jesus feet"

"Deep River"
Source unknown

and ecstatic delight at freedom:

"Slavery chain done broke at last, broke
at last, broke at last,
Slavery chain done broke at last,
Going to praise God till I die

Way down in-a dat valley
Praying on my knees
Told God about my troubles,
And to help me ef-a He please

I did tell him how I suffer,
In de dungeon and de chain,
And de days were with head bowed down,
And my broken flesh and pain.

I did know my Jesus heard me,
'Cause de spirit spoke to me
And said, 'Rise my child, your chillun,
And you shall be free.

'I done 'p'int one mighty captain
For to marshall all my hosts
And to bring my bleeding ones to me
And not one shall be lost.'

Slavery chain done broke at last, broke
at last, broke at last,
Slavery chain done broke at last,
Going to praise God till I die"

"Slavery Chain" Created about 1865
quoted in The Spirituals and the
Blues, by James Cone, 1972

God's response to slavery--both the harsh slavery of the Israelites and the unjust, race-based slavery of the US--sometimes seems glacially slow. The Old Testament explains the reason for God's perceived slowness for the Hebrews. The time wasn't complete for the inhabitants of the Promised Land.

The rhetoric of the slave spirituals of America is actually coded. The references to crossing over Jordan seems to be a reference to Heaven, but some contemporary accounts suggest that it meant to cross over from slavery into freedom. Today those same spirituals are sung--like Slavery Chain--as a sign of victory and as a continued sign of faith in God's deliverance by many African Americans.

For me, the valuable result of faith-filled imagination is to create that kind of art: the kind that sustains you (and others!) when times get tough. Jesus promises persecution to those who love him. King David comments that the rain falls on the good and on the bad. I've always interpreted that two ways: both God's blessings and God's tests fall on everyone indiscriminately to a certain extent.

Clearly faith guides our response to blessings and tests and even to attacks by our adversary and his crew. Faith-filled imagination helps us memorialize God's involvement in our lives and becomes a touchstone to rely on.

But it does one other thing. When our physical senses lead to the kind of failure of imagination that leads to a sense of spiritual oppression, faith-filled imagination helps us see God working invisibly.

My favorite example of this is when the King of Aram sends his army to surround Dothan in order to entrap and capture Elisha. Elisha and his servant survey the enemy the next morning and...well...let's turn to the Bible:

^{2 Kings 6:15-18 NIV} When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next
morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked.
¹⁶ "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
¹⁷ And Elisha prayed, "O LORD, open his eyes so he may see." Then the LORD opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

There's two ways to read this passage. One is that Elisha actually saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire around himself. The other is that Elisha--through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit--simply trusted through faith that God's army was present--though invisible--and greater. I tend to think the latter is true. Elisha's faith-filled imagination became visible to his servant through Elisha's prayer for the servant's eyes to be opened.

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Faith & Imagination, Pt 3: Failure of imagination

This is a really tough post for me. I've taken three stabs at it and this is my fourth. I know the point I want to get across, but it eludes my ability to explain it.

You might have heard the phrase "failure of imagination." It is a phrase that leaders use to take responsibility for problems that they failed to anticipate. The hope, of course, is that others will understand that they are not shifting blame, but they have no good explanation for why there was a failure to anticipate the problem.

I have always been fascinated by that phrase. You have to consider the tone of the person claiming to have a failure of imagination to understand whether they "mean it" or not. And you have to take into account how common the problem is that they "failed to imagine". Is it a problem that occurs every day? Once a week? Once in a thousand years? Then you develop a sense of trust for the person.

But in the life of faith, I think the phrase "failure of imagination" takes on a new depth. Let me explain...

When we are first saved, we're "babes in Christ" (borrowing from Paul's description.) Depending on the experience that led to salvation, we're approaching everything in a wide-eyed, deer in the headlights kind of way.

Because our understanding is fresh it is also incomplete. I believe God graciously allows new Christians to experience a vibrancy that provides a very real sense of emotional completion. I think some of this is the sealing of the Holy Spirit. But it is something I've noticed more often among the newly saved.

Then the process of blessing followed by testing occurs. We LIKE the blessings. If we're new to the faith and have good spiritual "parents" that continue to disciple us in the faith, then we even remember to turn these blessings into thanksgiving. It's easy at first. It's like the Holy Spirit is prompting us on how to relate to God. The Newsboys picked up on this concept in a song they did called "Spirit Thing":

It's just a spirit thing,
it's just a holy nudge,
it's like a circuit judge in the brain.
It's just a spirit thing,
it's here to guard my heart,
it's just a little hard to explain.

It pushes when i quit,
it smells a counterfeit,
Sometimes it works a bit like a
teleprompter...
When it's teleprompting you,
I pray you'll let it through,And I'll help you with the how..

The Newsboys sing the song in order to celebrate the mystery of the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We can't always put a finger on it, but we know when the Spirit is there. Jesus said it was like the wind blowing through the leaves of a tree. You can't SEE the wind, but you know it's blowing because the leaves are moving.

I made this point earlier in this series, but it is so important to the connection between imagination and faith. When you see the leaves blowing, what do you imagine the wind looking like?

For me, when I think hard about the wind, it turns into a stream of molecules that flows in the same way that water flows over rocks in a stream. The molecules flow quickly and slowly. they group together in one area (creating high pressure) and flow sparsely in another (creating low pressure.) When those molecules run into something...like a leaf...then Newton's Laws of motion come into play, especially the second law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Now if you aren't trained as a chemist/scientist like I am, you may IMAGINE and describe wind differently. If you are a poet, you may use poetic language. If you are a mother, you may use the language of caution and remind your children to "bundle up". Each person "sees" the wind differently in our imagination.

So what is failure of imagination? I think that occurs when we see it as "just the wind". You know...what was that sound? It was "just the wind." The spiritual equivalent is taking the work of the Holy Spirit for granted. It can go so far as to deny the work of the Holy Spirit. We're warned very specifically in scripture by Jesus that it is unforgivable to credit the work of the Holy Spirit to some other process.

But where's the warning for just taking the Holy Spirit for granted? It's like I said earlier...when we're young in our faith, it's as if the Spirit prompts us to be amazed by God's interaction with us. So what prompts us when we become mature in the faith?

Our imagination!! Not the part of it that invents from whole cloth. Instead I'm talking about the part of our imagination that sees what is truly there but is not visible. "What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see." (Hebrews 11:1-2 New Living Translation)

When we fail to consider God's promises, when we fail to take into account past blessings, when we fail to give credit to the Holy Spirit for the Spirit's work, the failure is due to unbelief...to lack of faith. It is a failure to imagine that God's reality...which is invisible...is stronger than the reality that we can see with our physical eyes.

I'm not chastising you if you have experienced this failure to imagine. In fact, the whole point of this post is that true leaders take responsibility where others don't by admitting that the problem may be simply a failure to imagine.

One of my favorite passages is about just such an admission of spiritual failure to imagine:

Mark 9:17-27 New KJV Then one of the crowd answered and said, “Teacher, I brought You my son, who has a mute spirit. 18 And wherever it seizes him, it throws him down; he foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth, and becomes rigid. So I spoke to Your disciples, that they should cast it out, but they could not.” 19 He answered him and said, “O faithless generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him to Me.”

20 Then they brought him to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. 21 So He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?”

And he said, “From childhood. 22 And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” 23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

25 When Jesus saw that the people came running together, He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!” 26 Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly, and came out of him. And he became as one dead, so that many said, “He is dead.” 27 But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose.

So translating into modern words what did the man say to Jesus? "Lord, I trust you, but I am failing to imagine how what you are saying is possible. Help me imagine it as possible."

Maybe the next time you encounter a difficult situation, you can think back to this phrase:

"Lord Jesus, I believe in you, but I am failing to imagine you delivering me in this situation. Help my unbelief!!"

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