One of God’s great gifts to humankind is the gift of imagination. Without this gift there would be no innovation; it is unlikely that many of the advances in human life would have come to pass. Without the wheel we would still be dragging things from place to place by sheer brute force. Without mathematics we might be limited to our ten fingers and “a big bunch.” Without the alphabet there would be no written literature. Without medical imagination, would we have discovered penicillin or other antibiotics? Without physics we would still be limited to the surface of our world.
It is informative to notice how many things first described in fantasy and science fiction later became possible and even a part of everyday life. The ubiquitous presence of cell phones seemed a total fantasy when I was a child.
Even in areas of the faith, how would we see the significance of Biblical stories without imaging how they might apply today? Scripture states, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard neither has it entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him.” Our imaginations rise up to wonder what those things might be.
We imagine all the goodness that Heaven will bring and it gives us hope even though we recognize that it will be even better than we can imagine.