Discipleship and Imagination: How My Children’s Imaginations Help to Sustain My Faith
Who forms who? Parents form kids, but how do kids form us? As a young parent of a five, three and one-year old I thought it was my responsibility to shape and fuel their imaginations, but I have come to realize they have done far more to reinvigorate my imagination. It seems no one needs to teach a child to play pretend. They naturally go about it as if they were born simply for the purpose of play. It is a good thing imaginary cheeseburgers and milkshakes do not have any calories because I have eaten hundreds of them prepared by my children! The best games we play are not bought from a store but originate in their minds. We have fought fires as firemen, been deep sea fishing, and have flown planes across oceans—all from their bunk bed. My children’s imaginations have helped me remember and realize the true gift of our imaginations.
Over time, we tend to devalue our imaginations. Certain life experiences may limit, or dull, our imaginations. We may even purposely set it aside thinking exercising our imaginations is a child’s activity. It can seem as though keeping an active imagination as an adult is only important for creatives, but not the average adult. This is a great misconception. Strong imaginations do not just create incredible writers, painters and playwrights. Imaginations are also critical to scientists who are trying to find creative ways of addressing climate concerns, and developing new forms of medicine to treat cancer. Strong imaginations are vital for politicians seeking to write legislation to address the issues of our day or diplomats seeking to resolve global conflicts. It is a strong imagination that allows a mechanic to surmise what is causing your car to make that awful clicking noise, and it is what allows an accountant to think of helpful solutions to a budget crisis.
Imagination is essential to almost all vocations, but even more importantly our imaginations are essential to a vibrant faith. As I observe and engage with my children’s imaginations, I begin to see how our imaginations play a role in sustaining our joy, our hope and even our sense of reality.
Sustaining Joy
There is a creativity and simplicity to my kid’s imagination. They have no problem playing out the same simple scenario over and over again. One of my kids’ favorite games is when they play firemen. They lay down like they are sleeping and then pretend to hear an alarm. That’s when they wake up to go fight the fire. After putting the fire out, they return home and go back to sleep. They repeat this same scene endlessly. They always seem to successfully put out the fire, and every time they seem to have joy doing it!
This has led me to understand that having a strong imagination doesn’t always mean thinking of something new or better, but the continuation of something good. G.K. Chesterton summarizes this best,
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
After the hundredth fake fire that my kids have put out I confess that I begin to get bored. Imagination allows us to rise above the downward drift of boredom and rejoice in the miracle of the monotony. Sustained joy is buoyed by an imagination that is strong enough to continue doing good things repeatedly and never getting bored of it.
Sustaining Hope
Something I cannot seem to do is to come up with a story so fantastic that my kids do not believe me. They always seem to go along with it when I speak about cotton candy clouds and unicorns that talk. Fantasy is to our minds like a stretch is to a hamstring. It opens our thinking up beyond our normal boundaries. I am slowly beginning to see that fantasy is not just a fun genre but a way of forming my children’s sense of hope. Because our sense of hope is only as strong as our ability to imagine what could be possible.
The thing about fantasy is that it is always grounded in some reality that we already know. We know what clouds are, and we know what cotton candy is, so we can imagine what a cotton candy cloud might look like (and for that matter taste like). My children’s imaginations are not boats adrift, unmoored to any sense of reality. Rather being grounded in reality they imagine new realities. They combine experiences to imagine new ones and better ones. Imagination doesn’t always mean thinking of something impossible, but the remembering of what could be possible.
In times of fear or confusion we need strong imaginations that see past the obstacles, threats and pain to a new reality that is possible. Christian hope is not some ephemeral fantasy, it is rooted in the facts of the gospel. The death and resurrection of Jesus were historical events; they were“not done in a corner” (Acts 26:26). Because they actually happened when we reach for hope in time of crisis we are not grasping at cotton candy clouds, but the firm reality of the Gospel. It may seem too fantastic to imagine God, who raised Jesus from the dead, would raise us up too (Rom. 8:11). Yet, the new realities believers experience in Christ are so fantastic it takes the strength of a child’s imagination to believe them.
Sustaining Reality
A strong imagination has a way of sustaining our joy and hope, but I am also becoming convinced that a strong imagination can also sustain our sense of reality. It may seem counterintuitive to think that a strong imagination would lead to a strong sense of reality, but as I try to communicate gospel truth to them I can see there are some truths that can only be grasped through stories.
The world my children are growing up in is a world where deciphering the truth is becoming increasingly difficult. The creation of virtual reality, the proliferation of news sources, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the pervasiveness of social media are all making it difficult to see what is true and what is false. As my children play, using their imaginations, I am learning that imagination does not always mean thinking of something untrue, but picturing what is true.
Some of the best fantasy stories communicate truth in more profound and clear ways than any textbook or lecture ever could. For my children, embracing their imagination is also helping to instill an understanding of the truth that will anchor them in a world of confusion.
So get down on the ground and have a pretend tea party with your kids! Or take them to pick up a good fantasy novel. You might find your sense of joy and hope lifted, and a sense of reality strengthened. What does it mean to have faith like a child? In part, it means having an imagination as strong as a child’s.