imagine that...

yesterday i visited the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, Mississippi.
it was small, but it gave me a chance to come face to canvas with some really beautiful pieces.

to be honest, i was not thrilled about getting on the road early on a saturday morning to be there when the museum opened. i didn't want to leave my toasty bed for a rainy 2 hour drive, that included breakfast at a gas station.
but sheepishly i admit that i think that God met me there.
there were paintings and woodblock prints that stirred something in me, a sense that there was more inside me,more inside us all then we will admit to. the ability to imagine,to dream, to reflect some of God's glory back to him.

this morning i heard two sermons.

the first spoke to imagination. specifically, how afraid we are to admit that God could use us, our crazy deep seeded dreams, our wild imaginations for the kingdom.
i think that imagination is a kind of worship. worship that comes in the form of paint on canvas, in giving away what we have in hopes that our gifts will be enough to feed the hungry or dreams of loving our neighbors better by transforming the broken down places around them. and the thought that in all of this, God gave us the gift of imagination to be able to create beauty, to find the 3rd way when the world says there are only two, to be peacemakers and restorers, to dance and sing because of the joy that accompanies all of this. faith is imaginative. imagining that there is more than we can see, and hear and finding a new way to get at it.

i think that for me, the second sermon was a reminder that as God brings those deep things in our hearts to bear, be it artist vision or a dream, to be thankful that he has met us in those moments. and to treasure those moments in our hearts, evidence of His faithfulness and Deity.

and encouragement to go wild, dream more dreams. reflect some of his Glory back to him.