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3/11/2020

Isaiah 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose imagination is stayed on Thee.”

Chambers asks, “Is your imagination stayed on God, or is it starved?”

Imagination: the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality (Webster’s Dictionary)

Chambers is once again challenging us to focus on our imagination of God. So, I decided to look up the definition of the word, and really keyed into what he may be trying to convey using it. God is very real to me, and yet I do not have any tangible evidence of His existence. My mental image of Him is incredibly strong, not as an actual being, the old man with a long white beard, but more as a presence too vast and resplendent for my human mind to contain. The one who formed the universe, and all that I can see, touch, taste, hear, and feel is also my Savior. He is my connector to the world around me, and protector of my soul. Can I see Him? No. Do I know He is real? Yes. How? I have seen and experienced too many things that cannot be explained, and I have felt the power of the Holy Spirit fill a room. There is NOTHING like that sensation in all the world.

Years ago, although it still feels like it was only yesterday, a very dear friend of ours became gravely ill very quickly. He had acquired the same strain of bacterial pneumonia that took the life of Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets. He was on life support in a drug-induced coma for two months. During that time, every major organ in his body took turns shutting down. His wife held vigil at his side the entire time, and our family took in their two preteen boys. Many people rallied around their family with gifts of love, time, and support. My husband and I took the boys almost daily to visit their parents; the hospital was a two hour roundtrip. One afternoon, we got a call to bring the boys as soon as possible, because the doctors did not expect their father to survive the night; every organ in his body was shutting down at once. When we got to the hospital, the boy’s mom wanted us to come to the chapel with her and the boys so we could pray and she could share this news with her sons. As the five of us sat in the tiny hospital chapel and began to pray, everything in the room changed. The power of the Holy Spirit was so strong that it left me breathless. After prayer and the delivery of the difficult news, we all headed back up to the ICU to wait. After some time, the doctor came out with a look of shock on his face: our friend had begun to improve a bit. Not long after that night, he was out of the hospital and in rehab with no permanent mental or physical damage. The only effects he has of that time are a scar from the trachea tube and a bit of numbness in one of his toes. The staff at the hospital call him Lazarus. Amazingly, this couple eventually was blessed with two more sons after all that trauma. Miraculous! When you experience something like that, your imagination of God can only expand. This is just one of the many times I have experienced the awesome power of my Lord, and those recollections stay my imagination on Him.

Chambers says, “Remember Whose you are and Whom you serve. Provoke yourself by recollection, and your affection for God will increase tenfold; your imagination will not be starved any longer, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.”

God of Wonders - Third Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0M8XK2w7wmw