Is Your Imagination As Starved As Mine?

Is Your Imagination Starved? Mine Is

Oswald Chambers is a real smart guy. No, he doesn’t have a podcast or his own Oswald Chambers Network. Oswald is dead but his words reverberate throughout history and today hit a hard spot in my heart.

“The people of God in Isaiah’s day had starved their imagination by looking on the face of idols, and Isaiah made them look up at the heavens; that is, he made them begin to use their imagination aright. Nature to a saint is sacramental. If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in Nature. In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky, in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realize it.” Oswald Chambers.

Our culture pressures us to look inward, to look at others, to focus on self rather than let our imaginations go wild.

Personal stuff: I worked in television for nearly 30 years, ran for public office, started a television show, video production and podcasting.

Sure, I’ve been creative but notice all these “things” I chose to do are so similar.

Like the people of Isaiah’s time, I’ve lost my imagination and fallen into stagnation. I left the “What if” out of my life. Not the “What if everything falls part” I’m talking about “What if I throw caution to the wind and give my imagination, domination over my next move?

God brought us to this place, to Montana, where wide open spaces are everywhere. When we first got here my imagination was rich with ideas. But I slipped back into doing what “Rick Dancer” always does, something that makes sense. I’m kind of tired of making sense and instead would like a limb to stand out on.

Nature is in the mountains, the valleys, the high mountain peaks and if I stop looking around in the usual holes and turn my eyes upward, perhaps I’ll see “The Next Thing.”

“lift up my eyes to the mountains—    where does my help come from?

My help comes from the Lord,    the Maker of heaven and earth.”

Psalms 121: 1-2