Christian Living

I Can Only Imagine—But Do You?

by J.W. Phillips
01/09/25
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I Can Only Imagine—But Do You?

The title of both a recent movie and a popular song is, “I Can Only Imagine.” But do you? This question is an important one.

The life God scripts for believers still requires much from us. There is a need for us to participate in both its design and details. This will require the use of our imagination.

It was Benjamin Disraeli, the former Prime Minister of England, who said that “life is too short to be little.” Life will be less than little, however—inconsequential, really—if we go through each day with a passive imagination.

Many people, having no vision of their own, appear to be waiting for life to happen to them. They are responders, not dreamers.

In her book, The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson describes such a life as being like plankton. Plankton drifts thousands of miles, going from ocean to ocean. Being powerless and mindless, plankton is at the will of the currents, having no destiny of its own.

And is this not the way it is for some people today? Devoid of purpose, deficient in passion, they are subject to the capricious currents of their environment, whatever that turns out to be.

It is this abdication of piloting, planning, and pursuing that makes finding the Lord’s will for their lives almost impossible. A.B. Simpson said of those who aspire for little and aim for nothing: “The greatest calamity that can come to a soul is to be satisfied with its present condition.”¹

Other people do set a course of their own, and with much determination follow it. But it's the course endorsed by the world; and that's precisely why, from eternity's perspective, it won't amount to much.

This point was profoundly illustrated by Zechariah, the Old Testament prophet who told of horsemen commissioned by heaven to gallop the globe (Zechariah 1:8-11; 6:1-5). Their mission? Discover what was going on in the earth and then report back to the Lord.

So, off they went, their mighty horse hooves kicking up the dust. North, South, East, West—they covered the world as only mythological horses can do. And then, having been to every nation in the known world, they thundered their way back into the presence of God to give this most incredible report. “Nothing,” they said, “is going on in the earth.”

Nothing? Why, according to James Hastings, the world at that time was a boiling political cauldron! Sparta and Athens were eyeball to eyeball in a nervous cold war. The Ionian city-states were stirring with strange new philosophies. Darius himself was fighting off repeated coups to the throne. So how could it be reported there was nothing going on?

Here’s why. Kingdoms and kings come and go, and the philosophies that blow in also blow out; yet—and this is the important point—that which is eternal was being sorely neglected. Even today, what the newspapers deem important may not be important to God, and what the tabloids find fascinating may not in any way fascinate him.

Whenever we allow the world to set the standard, what emerges is something, in method or outcome, not all that good.

There is a better alternative. It begins with God putting his desires in our heart (Psalm 37:4), and it ends with those desires being fulfilled under his superintendent watchcare (Philippians 2:13).

In between the giving and fulfilling of desires there is a role we must undertake, and it involves our imagination. Because if our mind is blank and our imagination passive, no vision will come, despite the critical importance vision has for our lives.

The extraordinary isn’t likely to occur until ideas incubate in the creative compartment of the imagination. Just like the Lord, we are to call into being what isn’t there.

One truth gleamed from Genesis is that the Spirit of God won’t settle for emptiness, randomness, disorder, and darkness. He moves against all that with a creative insistence. This is a pattern, in the energy of this same Spirit, that we should follow.

The passive imagination, with its blank screen and absence of programming, has no thirst for meaning, no spirit of discovery, no striving for excellence.² It just meanders in mediocrity, allowing itself to be overly defined by the ruts of routine.

Commenting on this rudderless drifting, the Puritan John Howe said: “What folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at once and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal.”³

The pattern many have lapsed into is one of waiting and waiting for God to make some pronouncement from on high; and then, with the passing of years, losing hope that this pronouncement will ever be made.

The vision God communicates will set a direction; yet many needed specifics will be omitted, intentionally.

The intent of these omissions is to elicit a participation on our part, wherein our imagination is used, our faith is extended, our authority is developed, our wisdom is utilized.

Frederick W. Faber reminded us, “God's will does not come to us in the whole, but in fragments, and generally in small fragments. It is our business to piece it together, and to live it into one orderly vocation.”

A.B. Simpson wrote, “For every consecrated soul God has a distinct plan and a divine program lifting it above all common lives and making it marked and sublime.”⁴

Those who delight soon discern (Psalm 37:4). So how do we do this?

Scripture tells us how to discern, how to piece together these fragments, when it says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, will give the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of our understanding being enlightened; that we may know what is the hope of his calling... (Ephesians 1:17, 18).

As we consider all these noetic capacities stacked in Scripture—wisdom, revelation, knowledge, understanding, and enlightenment—we soon suspect that determining the direction of our life, even after the implanting of desires, isn’t something our brain is capable of.

So let’s briefly consider what each of these terms means.

Revelation means truth outside the rim of human genius, something given by God that could never be humanly conceived.

Wisdom means the ability to apply the truth, to step out in faith, trusting God to supply the necessary resources.

Knowledge speaks of a relationship, an intimate interacting with the Lord from which the secrets of the Lord can be disclosed.

Understanding means discerning the implications of revealed truth, connecting what has been revealed to those areas of life that need it the most.

Enlightenment refers to the impact this understanding has on us and the specific ways it impacts our imagination.

Stepping back a bit to reflect on the connections between wisdom, knowledge and understanding, F.B. Meyer anchored heaven-sent visions to earth when he observed, “… we must never lose sight of the urgent need of uniting visions to duties. We are always standing between the two.”

The vision can absorb us, exhilarate us, and carry us to high clouds of contemplation; whereas duty, and the tasks duty assigns, require feet and hands to move in practical ways.

According to Meyer, there is a need for balance: “Not the vision without the task, or we become dreamers and visionaries. Not the task without the vision, or we become as dumb, driven cattle”⁵

A.B. Simpson observed, “God has for each of us a good, a better, or a best. The great majority are languidly content to have the good, a minority choose the better, and one out of myriads occasionally claims the best.”⁶

But those with a passive imagination, a misguided imagination, or a failed imagination will never experience so profound a satisfaction as that which comes to those who have their imaginations directed by the Lord.

Notes:
1. A.B. Simpson, The Christ in the Bible Commentary, Volume three, (Camp Hill, PA., WingSpread Publishers, 2009), p.15.
2. There is a stone among the ruins of ancient Carthage that had this philosophy of life carved upon it: “To laugh, to hunt, to bathe, to game—that is life.” The Speaker’s Bible, The Epistles to the Ephesians, The Epistle to the Colossians, Edward Hastings, ed., (Aberdeen, Scotland, Turnbull & Spears, 1930), p.38.
3. Thomas Harris, I’m Okay; You’re Okay, (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), p.142.
4. A.B. Simpson, Present Truths or the Supernatural, Telfair, PA., Worthy Christian Library (online), chapter 3, paragraph 20.
5. F.B. Meyer, Peter, (Fort Washington, PA., CLC Publications, 2002), p.200.
6. A.B. Simpson, The Christ in the Bible Commentary, Volume Two, (Camp Hill, PA., WingSpread Publishers, 2009), p.64.