A Good Imagination

I read a verse last week as part of a new devotional that reminds us that God “is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:20, NIV, emphasis mine). And we hear awesome, amazing stories of His fulfilling that promise. But I was thinking, as I read that verse, that surely it’s getting harder for Him: after all, since reading and hearing and seeing so many awesome stories of God’s providence, I’ve got to say I’ve got a pretty good imagination.

I can imagine writing terrific books that sell well, allow me to quit my job (the work is fine; the hours stink), let me write full-time (which would just be so amazingly fantastic), and let my wife and I live in a nice home that I can imagine waking up in on Christmas morning.

And I pray that most of that stuff happens – certainly the “writing full-time” part, because even though I like the work I’m doing now, the hours stink. And maybe some of it will happen even I don’t expect, or necessarily even wish for it. But it doesn’t stop me from imagining it.

(Now, what I’m about to say is not to be taken as anything like a foundation of my faith. I say that because I think it makes God seem rather small to assume something like this happened just for me. It’s not as miraculous as many stories, nor are its benefits assigned to myself alone.)

Last Monday, I was supposed to go for a bike ride. I hadn’t been able to go the previous week because of the weather. Looking ahead at Thursday, my day off again appeared to be going to crap: high percent-chance of thunderstorms basically all day. Well, that was okay: I go in to work later in the mornings, I could just ride one of the mornings it was supposed to be nice.

Who here has waited till the last minute to do taxes?

3am Monday morning, my wife and I were going to bed after finally submitting our taxes online. A ride was obviously out. That’s okay: Tuesday morning looked nice, too. I brought my bike home that night (apartment is too small to keep it here…) looking forward to a ride the next day.

But it began eating at me: mornings on the days I work are supposed to be for writing my book – you know, that thing I want to do full-time one day? Thursdays, except for riding, are to be spent doing all the other writing – blogs, articles, et cetera. And even if I could ride one morning and just do the book on Thursday, it didn’t feel right. I’m supposed to be disciplining myself to sit down and write – a discipline I will definitely need when I have all day to write, and can procrastinate like a snooze button.

So, I finally decided – disgruntledly – that I would do what I was supposed to and write. Riding had to take second place. So that’s what I did. Then, something happened that was beyond what I could ask or imagine.

The rain disappeared from the forecast. Tuesday morning, after writing and before I took my bike back to work un-ridden, I checked the weather. Instead of a 70% chance of rain most of the day, there was a 20% chance in the afternoon (which, come Thursday, disappeared almost altogether).

I’m sure there were folks whose day was ruined (somehow) by the nice weather – and a lot more people relished the day besides me. I won’t say God changed the weather because I was obedient. What I might say is that He pushed on my conscience so heavily – and, looking back on it, so inexplicably: why not just write on Thursday? – because He knew the forecast was going to change, and I was going to have a gorgeous day on which to ride on Thursday.

So, I can imagine the big things easily enough. I just never imagined He would care that I enjoyed riding; I imagined He would teach me to do the “right” thing, and learn to let go of the other thing.

I never imagined He would give me both.