"The imagination is the bridge between the heart and the mind, integrating both, allowing us to think/understand with our hearts and feel/emote with our minds. It is a vehicle for truth" (Card 55).
In the next chapters of Scribbling in the Sand, Michael Card digs deeper into what it means to respond to God's call to creativity. He suggests that the imagination can be thought of as the door at which Jesus knocks in Revelation 3:20, which means we have the options of leaving the door shut or opening it and responding to this call. In addition, we can use our imagination in an obedient or disobedient fashion. Do we use the gifts and abilities God has given us in a way that brings glory to Him, as Noah built the ark, or do we use them for our own ends, as the builders of the Tower of Babel?
The author notes the significance of this decision by noting, "the sins that exercise the most control over us take place in the imagination" (56). If the imagination is powerful enough to cause us to stumble, to break each of the Ten Commandments one by one as we murder with hateful thoughts, idolize everything in our lives but God, dishonor our parents by thinking ill of their decisions ... how, then, could we redirect that power to obediently use the gifts and opportunities that God presents to us? The humanistic view of our art being limited to our own physical limitations seems ridiculous when we consider that it is not we who are creating something out of nothing, but rather God working through us, if we open the door for Him, to reveal what we can only imagine. It is not our duty to be creative and come up with new ideas; it is our duty to allow God to reveal to us and to the world the beauty for which we have a natural hunger. We can only reveal truth through Christ, and we can only do so by reaching the heart and the mind.
In the next chapters of Scribbling in the Sand, Michael Card digs deeper into what it means to respond to God's call to creativity. He suggests that the imagination can be thought of as the door at which Jesus knocks in Revelation 3:20, which means we have the options of leaving the door shut or opening it and responding to this call. In addition, we can use our imagination in an obedient or disobedient fashion. Do we use the gifts and abilities God has given us in a way that brings glory to Him, as Noah built the ark, or do we use them for our own ends, as the builders of the Tower of Babel?
The author notes the significance of this decision by noting, "the sins that exercise the most control over us take place in the imagination" (56). If the imagination is powerful enough to cause us to stumble, to break each of the Ten Commandments one by one as we murder with hateful thoughts, idolize everything in our lives but God, dishonor our parents by thinking ill of their decisions ... how, then, could we redirect that power to obediently use the gifts and opportunities that God presents to us? The humanistic view of our art being limited to our own physical limitations seems ridiculous when we consider that it is not we who are creating something out of nothing, but rather God working through us, if we open the door for Him, to reveal what we can only imagine. It is not our duty to be creative and come up with new ideas; it is our duty to allow God to reveal to us and to the world the beauty for which we have a natural hunger. We can only reveal truth through Christ, and we can only do so by reaching the heart and the mind.
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