The simple things are most precious

The people of God in Isaiah's day had starved their imagination by looking on the face of idols, and Isaiah made them look up at the heavens, that is, he made them begin to use their imagination aright.  Nature to a saint is sacramental.  If we are children of God, we have a tremendous treasure in Nature.  In every wind that blows, in every night and day of the year, in every sign of the sky,k in every blossoming and in every withering of the earth, there is a real coming of God to us if we will simply use our starved imagination to realize it.
The test of spiritual concentration is bringing the imagination into captivity.  Is your imagination looking on the face of an idol?  Is the idol yourself?  Your work?  Your conception of what a worker should be?  Your experience of salvation and sanctification?  Then your imagination of God is starved, and when you are up against difficulties you have no power, you can only endure in darkness.  If your imagination is starved, do not look back to your own experience; it is God Whom you need.   Go right out of yourself, away from the face of your idols, away from everything that has been starving your imagination. Rouse yourself, take the gibe that Isaiah gave the people, and deliberately turn your imagination to God.
One of the reasons of stultification in prayer is that there is no imagination, no power of putting ourselves deliberately before God.  We have to learn how to be broken bread and poured-out wine on the line of intercession more than on the line of personal contact.  Imagination is the power God gives a saint to posit himself out of himself into relationships he never was in.
Ok.  Get out your dictionary on this one.  I know I had to look up three words here, of which I'd never, ever heard of.  Stultification, gibe, and posit.  Do you know what they mean, without looking them up?  If so you are more well versed in words than I.  But, being a collector of words, I quickly added them to my accumulation.
The imagination....I never gave it much thought really, except  I was always told that I had an active imagination as a child.  And I took that to be a negative.  However, this lesson goes hand in hand with a study I've been doing recently about bringing every thought into captivity, not believing what I "see" with my eyes but rather believing what the Word of God says, interceding on behalf of another and really battling for that persons soul.  I guess that would be the same as learning how to be broken bread and poured-out wine on the line of intercession more than on the line of personal contact.  Intercession is not always the easiest way for the flesh.  Self likes to get in there and have it's say.  The idol of myself and having my say is a test of my spiritual concentration.  Holding my tongue to personal contact and instead, taking my starved imagination and pouring out my heart to God is the higher road.  It's a quiet, secret, hidden manner of communication.  But it is the very best.  Sweet surrender.  Now that I'm thinking about this in relation to simplicity....I realize that words can oftentimes cause confusion.  Words can sure take the simplicity out of a thing.  Take for instance  mine and my husbands relationship.  He is a man of few words.  And when he does speak, his words carry weight, they are important and I need to pay close attention.  He can get so frustrated and things get confusing when I start to ramble.  I can make something so complicated and confusing when I use too too many words.  I need to work on this more.  Take my imagination to the Lord rather than rattle off.  If I would just sit quiet, Mike would finish speaking his thought and I would get it.
I still love words, and I always will.  I'll still write for myself if for no other reason, and words will help me to understand.  Even if I go around my elbow to get to my brain.  But when it comes to my beloved, let me have a meek and quiet spirit when I need to.

Living simply and for Him,
Sherri