Seeing… The prophetic Imagination…(Sunday Evening 5th September)

Sight is an attribute of God.  It is the fourth verb used of God in the Bible.   (After Created, hovered, said. See Gen 1. 1-4)  Seeing is a spiritual activity, a creative activity.

Seeing can cause trouble…  What we seen and how we see is a spiritual issue… (Gen 3. 6: Eve saw that the fruit of the Tree was good. Incidentally part of the temptation was to have their eyes opened and part of the consequence was that their eyes were opened!)

Seeing is part of the prophetic function: See Isa 6. 1 (“I saw the Lord…) and Jeremiah 1. 11f (“What do you see?”  The pun is lost in English translation. Something like “I see a stick/I will stick to what I have said in my Word.”   We need to pray for those who will see… who will speak prophetically to the people of God.

Isa 43. 16-21. 

• The Lord who brought his people out of Egypt, The God of Exodus (v 16f) speaks of the new thing he is going to do; something that is already happening. 
• The new thing is not a repeat of the past. (v 18)  it’s time to leave the past behind.  The past is good because God was at work. But too often the past is all that we can see.  It prevents us from seeing the future with God.
• The new thing is about God at work.  “I am doing…”  The obvious first point of focus for this chapter is end of the Babylonian captivity, but Isaiah sees this as the first step towards the coming of Jesus… to bring a Kingdom that – unlike the end of the Egyptian captivity which brought death to the captors – bring healing and refreshment to lost people in a broken world.
• The new thing is at the door. (v19) It springs forth.  It is there.  Don’t you see it?  The new thing that God wants to do today will not be a repeat of the past.  It will not be based on the protection of a small elite elect and the destruction of the rest.  It is about bringing wholeness to the world God so loved.  A generous, life affirming, life-giving Kingdom.  We live ion the New covenant.  God wants to do a new thing for 2010-11, here.  Of course it springs forth.  It has sprung forth in Jesus.  So as it springs forth, in new shape and form for this generation, don’t you see it?  Seeing it is a creative, spiritual activity.  Catching a vision.  

This kind of seeing is an exercise of faith.  “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”  (John 11. 40 at the raising of Lazarus) Faith is the conviction of things not seen (physically).   Seeing is believing?  No; believing is seeing.  If you believe something, you see it, first with the inner eye, then physically

So we need to bring that inner gift of seeing, of imagination, under the authority of Jesus, and see what he sees.  1Ki 19:3  When Elijah saw what Jezebel threatened, he arose, and went for his life.

May our imagination be set free from captivity to wrong ways of seeing, so that we can see with faith what God wants to do in us and through us.

© Gilmour Lilly September 2010