What He Really Needs

He said, "I need a Chinese water stone", used to sharpen the blades of knifes, scissors, hedge clippers, machetes,  and axes, etc.  Why a boy of 11 needs to sharpen all of these things remains a mystery to me.  Do we even own a machete?  

He said, "I almost have enough money saved to buy an ax."  I wonder what does a boy this size do with an ax?  He says, "I will cut down trees that I can use for stuff". Since there is no ax here (yet) he and his brother have gone out to saw down a small tree for bow making.

Last week he said he needed a roll of black string; he was making a net to trap animals with (we buy our meat from the store!).  He needed a piece of wood.  He was making a net making tool.  Always he needs new and curious things to work out what he's been working on within. 

net making tool and card

He's just this little boy with a big hat and bigger thirst for bringing his imagination to reality every day.

I felt Him nudge me as I thought of my son; nudged about imagination and the way in which I use mine, or don't.  I've never liked it much....didn't have many  little girl dreams,  didn't "get" the dreamers of this world, didn't read fiction ( a waste of time, I thought)   A teacher once coined it, "The Theater of Your Mind".   When my son's imagination engages, I can only imagine that he is the greatest hunter ever beheld; trapping wild game, shooting the 12 point buck, trapping the craftiest bobcat, raccoon, and possum, catching the leviathan of fish. Only occasionally does he have to scale back his assault when he inadvertently snags a goat by the hoof, or the biggest catch of all, the day he caught his father while he brush hogged the pine thicket.  Quickly a request was made to remove all high hanging snares that could possibly endanger inadvertent human prey.  (Dad was able to stop the tractor in time to save his hand).  There is no hiding what exploits he's dreaming of  as it all spills out around here in visible heaps.  

A couple of years accumulated Christmas gift--live traps

 So the idea that HE would like ME (and maybe You too) to dream and imagine is new and bewildering--- and not just a little exciting.  And I have been doing it....doing the work of a dreamer, blowing the dust off of the imagination station and seeing big things.  

When I was very small I had one memorable dream...I imagined having a pony of my own.  When I was 39 years old a woman from out east called to inquire on purchasing sheep from our farm.  In the course of the conversations, she, a Christian, felt lead of God to give me a gift.  She sent a photograph .

Why would a complete stranger want to give such a gift?  It had been more than 35 years since I had dreamed the dream of having one.........and I didn't ask for a registered Welsh pony of such quality.  I only  wanted a pony. 

I tried to trade the woman, my sheep for this animal, but she would not have it.  She said a gift is not paid for, it is given.  In the end, she purchased our sheep and delivered this beautiful pony to our farm.  I don't ride him, yet I enjoy his presence like no other animal I've ever had.  I hug him, I brush him, I watch him run with this glory that is unearthly.   I imagined and He supplied.  

So, these days of imagining and day dreaming, I'm asking Him to supply even the dreams and let me see in my  mind's eye what He has for me .  I'm asking that He won't let me shrink down His plans, not dowse His flames, not limit Him and me.   And I think that what He is working within will have their day, will have their moment in the sun like my son's secret thoughts revealed in real time and real life.  Never had it occurred to me to ask the Almighty for imagination until the day He invited me to. 

And I made the statement at the start, "What He Really Needs" and I pause thinking.  Until right now, I'm not really sure.  Until now I didn't know that I needed it too.  He needs to stay there, right where he is.  Stay in the place where he broods over the well spring that his dreams flow up from, that place of wonder that is God's. 

And lastly, I will add that today we brought home an ax from the farmer's co-op.  He saved enough.  We chopped down a tree.  He is going to "use it for stuff".   And I am going to see where my imagination takes me as well.  ;)  Takes me away into His will.