I love imagination. Great movies, literature, poetry, and music were conceived in someone’s imagination. Many of those sparked other imaginative thoughts and actions in the hearts and minds of others. Dreams of freedom gave birth to freedom. Dreams of justice gave birth to justice. Imagination has cured diseases, solved mysteries, and explored new worlds. Imagination is powerful and life changing.

We live in a world still needing imaginative solutions to serious problems. Inequality, injustice, racism, disease, oppression, and war to name a few. The desperately needed answers will be born in someone’s imagination.

George Bernard Shaw wrote, “You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?’”

The prophet Joel writes, “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” Joel 2.28

What is your, “Why not?” What visions and dreams wait us?

One man shared a noble dream and it changed a nation. He said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”*

To be sure, his dream is far more detailed, with a long road ahead, but with holy imagination and holy courage, we can get it done.

When you lay your head down and ponder the plight of the world, pray for God to enter your sleep. In your sleep, I pray your dreams are Spirit-filled. I pray the images challenge and inspire you. And when you wake, you act. What song, poem, image, action, or any of a thousand other things will be born in your imagination and help change the world for the better?

 

*”I HAVE A DREAM …” (Copyright 1963, MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.) Speech by the Rev. MARTIN LUTHER KING at the “March on Washington”