Tag: Dreaming

Personal Musings, Theological Musings

The Kingdom as Imagination and Dreaming

10274327_10156636848740643_4770778223963690522_nRecently I’ve been thinking about Jesus saying we need to become like little children to inherit the Kingdom of God. And I’m sure there are lots of really great interpretations of this verse, with lots of really meaningful applications.

But the one I’ve been thinking about today is what if Jesus is talking about imaginations?

I mean as I think about my own kids, the one thing they have is so much imagination. And imagination, along with wonder, seems to be something we lose as adults.

Just recently I’ve had two interactions with Asher that remind me of the wonder of imagination. One, I was sleeping and he hit me with a stick and said, “Wake up daddy – I hit you with my magic stick. See it work you wake up” and he bounced off singing, and waking up all his animals. Then we were wrestling and he stops me and says, “I win daddy – I have laser eyes *blink blink* I got you again.”

These are things that never ever occur to me…

And I know that Jesus could be talking about a lot of things, but what if he’s talking about how we won’t be able to enter the Kingdom unless we can imagine it? Unless we can maybe dream up what it might look like? And how it might actually affect our lives right here and now?

What if part of the problem of us seeing the Kingdom really changing lives and changing communities ~ is because of our lack of imagination for how it might happen? What if our shrunken imaginations are actually shrinking the possibilities for the kingdom?

Ever since Asher beat me in wrestling with his laser eyes I’ve been thinking about that question. What possibilities might Asher see for the Kingdom that I’m missing? What might Asher fearlessly try that I wouldn’t? What might I see if I had the imagination and wonder of a child fully invested in the Kingdom of God?

I don’t have any great answers to that question…but I think it’s a great question to start with. And so while I don’t how it all plays out, I’ve been praying a new prayer recently because of my kids, “God give me eyes to see your world with childlike imagination.” Because once we start dreaming, and imagining we can also start following.

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Dreaming with God

1136764_21619849On Sunday we are looking at an exciting question: “Where are you taking us God?”

Because here is what I believe – God has a trajectory for our lives. This includes your personal life, and our corporate life as a church.

I believe that God has plans, desires, and even dreams for us. So on Sunday I want to dream together and ask the question, “God what is your vision for our church? Where are you leading us? Where might you be taking us? What might be in our future?”

And this is so important because simply by asking this question you get drawn closer to someone. You might even have experienced this, that when you first started dating someone the thing that drew you close was dreaming about your future together. Getting married. Having kids. Whatever. And one of the things I’ve noticed is that when marriages start to struggle, they’ve stopped dreaming together.

And what is true in our dating lives, and marriages is true with God as well. As we dream together we grow closer to God, we listen better to God, we share ourselves and ask him to share himself.

So come Sunday I’m going to share seven signposts to where, I think, God is leading us, and I’m going to ask you to dream with him.

And so before then why not ask God this question, “What dreams do you have for me and my church”. You might not be part of our church, that’s fine, but what dreams might God have for your church? I think we need to get into the habit of dreaming with God because if we ever want to find his future for us – it starts by dreaming with him.