“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.” Isaiah 26:3
Each of us is uniquely, wonderfully and fearfully made in the image of God. Being made in the image of God includes the ability to use our minds to think, reason, conceive or imagine what does not exist and to speak our thoughts so that we may share them with other people. If our imagination comes from being made in God’s image then it leads me to believe that God himself has an imagination. He uses his mind to conceive or imagine what he desires and then as Romans 4:17 states, “he calls into being things that do not yet exist.”
At the very core of his being, God is good and he is love. We have the ability and opportunity to use our imagination to think about and imagine what the goodness and love of God our Father will look like in a situation or what the lack of his goodness or love will look like. In him there is no lack of goodness or love and he is inviting us into thinking about and declaring his goodness and love over every situation where there is a lack of goodness. 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 states, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”– the things God has prepared for those who love him– these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.
It takes no faith to imagine what a lack of God’s goodness looks like. If I do not stay focused on the eternal truth that God is good and that his love endures forever, then when faced with relational, health, financial or any other problems… I can easily begin to be fearful. This can then lead to imagining and living out an illogical and irrational world separate from the goodness and love of God. Proverbs 10:24 states in part, “What the wicked dread will overtake them.” However, this verse goes on to state, “What the righteous desire will be granted.” It takes self-discipline and faith in God’s nature to declare his goodness when faced with situations that scream at me “if God is good and he really loves you then you would not be in this hard place facing an impossible situation.”
In the last 15 years I have faced multiple seemingly impossible situations which include the death of my first wife, open heart surgery, cancer and the death of my oldest son. In each of these situations God my Father showed me his goodness and love and sustained me through those very difficult times. If you know me well you have heard me repeatedly declare “that God is good and his love endures forever and never will he leave me or forsake me.”
I dare to say that it is impossible to overestimate the goodness and love of God and that he wants us to imagine his goodness being manifested in every situation we face. Please join me in believing the word of God from Ephesians 3:20 which states that he “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”
Blessings,
Kevin