Imagination A Gift From God

Chapter 1; Active Imagination

Unfortunately that doesn’t help the nervous and petrified person, and that didn't work in my case as I had already looked down. All this did was make me want to get down even faster. The fear got worse as I would then notice the wind blowing, as the branches furiously were swaying back and forth, panic now had set in and I was afraid of falling now. This was where my wild Imagination would take over, I BECAME THE SUPERHERO!

I began jumping from branch to branch, swinging off one and then landing on another – In my parents' eyes I must have looked like some kind of monkey, in my mind I was a mighty superhero. Nothing could stop me from accomplishing my goal of reaching the bottom, until I misjudged how far one of the branches was; I jumped hoping to grasp hold of it, but missed and proceeded to rapidly fall out of the tree. I must have fallen only about six or seven feet down, but in my over active mind it felt like I was falling from at least forty to fifty feet down. I had hurt myself multiple times during these processes of my childhood adventures, the odd scratch here and slight bump there. On this fatal day though, as I fell from the tree bouncing off the grass with a heavy thud.

Only one thing past through my mind during the fall, “If I survive this fall, my mother is going to kill me”.

I got into quite a lot of trouble as a child, as a result of this active imagination that I had. After the shock of falling had finally left and the pain subsided, as my tears slowly stopped, realizing that I was still alive and my mother did not witness my death drop – you think I would have been afraid now to climb trees after facing such a traumatic event; not really, I proceeded to climb it all over again the following day. Now, you’d think I would have learnt my lesson from this event – this time do not swing and jump like a baboon in the tree; not really, I was ready to conquer that battle again, I wanted to become that mighty superhero. I knew that bumps and bruises were going to be inflicted upon my body, they slowly became trophies in my superhero battle.

Further stories could be told, epic battles I faced as I chopped leaves in half with my mighty bamboo stick, and endless wars that I had faced within that backyard with my water pistol. What Seems to be most intriguing when I think back to these events is not only did I have an active imagination always in overdrive; what amazed me the most was having that ability to turn my fear into fun, as I faced terrible moments or situations. At that stage in our childhood we don’t realize that those active thoughts we produce is what I believe to be a gift from God. It was only in later years when I read the Bible, was how I saw God's all powerful gift flowing in my life. I would recall the stories of the Bible being read to me as a child, and being motivated by so many individuals within the Bible.

Samson and Delilah.
Noah and the Ark.
David and Goliath.
Moses and the Red Sea.
Daniel and the Lion's Den.
Jonah and the Whale.
Joseph and his twelve brothers.

Because of these great moments within the Bible, these incredible individuals helped me to see how strong this power of imagination was and I will explain why. The result of those events taking place around these men's lives, not only drew me in but increased my adventurous thoughts as a child. Seeing how active imaginations worked, I decided to relate them and their stories in the bible to my thoughts and situations around my life. My first doubt was, how could their imaginations possibly merge or connect with my imagination? Let me show you how this happened for me as we look into and read about Samson’s life as he battled the lion.

Judges 14:5-6 NKJV
'So, Samson went down to Timnah with his father and mother, and came to the vineyards of Timnah. Now to his surprise, a young lion came roaring against him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart as one would have torn apart a young goat, though he had nothing in his hand. But he did not tell his father or his mother what he had done.'