I have always felt that, like many of my fellow nerds, imagination is one of the cornerstones of my mind. I use it freely all the time. It helps me read, play games, and relate to a lot of the strict science of my classes. But at the same time, I know it is a double-edged sword. I have always envied the simple stories and worlds of my books and games. The world for those characters is happening TO them; they are not at all asking for the One Ring or for their father’s mysterious sword: it just happens, and they are propelled by events. But in my own life, especially my spiritual life, I am disheartened and depressed by how much that Doesn’t Happen. I have to surrender and give my life to God; nothing will just make that happen. Faced with this struggle, I cannot help but wonder and ask of God why he gave me imagination; it only shows me things that aren’t real or didn’t happen to me. What is this use of this?
I have always heard imagination comes from God: that He was the Original Nerd. I have always loved that sentiment. “God is a nerd like me,” I would think. “He imagined this world for us and everything in it.” But today, in the middle of church, I really was hit with this: God is not a nerd and our imagination is both different than his and used for vastly different things. This was not a bad realization. It was actually the furthest thing from Bad and I am very thankful for this. A nerd is passionate about his hobbies. He knows all the small facts about his domain and invents new ways that things could work or new explanations for unexplained phenomena. That falls so short of God that it cannot or should not be likened to Him. because we are not his hobbies. He didn’t just create a world for us filled with detail like an author would. He did—and does—so much more, so much beyond.
Take J.R.R. Tolkien for example. He is one of the world’s most famous imaginations. He didn’t just create a world for his story. He invented multiple languages, an incredibly sophisticated and intense mythology and history, and peoples and civilizations that went so far beyond his main story line you could spend a year studying it and never read about Frodo, The Shire, or the Ring. He did all of this for his personal enjoyment.
But God didn’t just invent languages. He invented the concept of language. Of taking physical things like vibrations in the air or gyrations of the hand and ascribing a shared meaning to them so that one person may let another person know what is happening in his brain. God didn’t invent a world and a history. He invented galaxies. He made hundreds of trillion different worlds that all have their own unique histories. And He made them for us. I can’t wrap my head around that and never will. No one can.
We can’t do this. No matter how much we try, we can not imagine new things. God imagined everything and our imagination can only be inside of his. So the only conclusion I can reach is we are not supposed to imagine new things. Imagination is, for us, to take what God has done and use it to see things differently. To get new perspectives on any and all things. To reach for understanding of the world around us and the God who made it for us. Imagination is a Divine Tool. Why else would God make the galaxies around us? We are unlikely to reach even the edges of our galaxy, so why is there an infinite number beyond ours? God is saying to us, “Here I am, in infinity. You can never reach the end of me. Explore. Spend years exploring. Millenia. You can never reach the end. Take what I have done and use it to explore my Virtues, like Justice, Mercy, Love. I have given you everything you need to get to know me and show the world what you have found. I have told a Story that you can’t possibly ever understand, but you can maybe hear a part of it and tell others.”
So this is what I have come to believe is the purpose for our imagination. To know and explore God and who he is, and to transform that knowledge gained into part of the Great Story for others to know as well.
