Think Again!

Chapter 16: Maximizing God’s ROI: Cultivate Your Imagination • 143

delay, Ethan uses his imagination. He steps out on the window ledge, high above the street, and assesses his options. Suddenly, as a truck appears below, he uses his belt to slide down a wire, lands on top of the passing truck, jumps off, and secures his escape through a crowd. Like Ethan, you need to use your imagination in difficult and confusing situations. Ethan assessed the surroundings using the resources available and crafted an ingenious approach. You can learn to do the same. God has given you resources but you need the imagination to recognize them. Replace Preservation with Imagination Preservation is one of the devil’s schemes (mentioned in chapter 5), where the world is seen as a pie to be split, and each person contends to keep his share of the pie. Preservation attempts to analyze God and define him using manageable terms. Preservation prefers situations that can be tamed, controlled, domesticated, seized, entrenched, exploited, and conquered. Preservation desires rules, security, self-protection, bean-counting, and bureaucracy. Preservation is relentlessly pragmatic, but imagination refuses to be boxed in. Preservation asks, “Is it realistic, practical, or viable?” Imagination simply replies, “If I can imagine it, it is doable.” Preservation says, “We can’t go in there; there are giants in the land,” but imagination says, “God is with us, we can do it!” (Num. 13.26-33). Preservation requires the rich, powerful, and elite, but imagination can work in anyone . Preservation asks, “How many times should I forgive?” Imagination responds, “I don’t know, 70x7?” Imagination plants a tree for shade, while preservation wants to cut it down for One way to cultivate your imagination is to recognize and reject preservation .