Is it just my Imagination?

You may have decided to try one of the Pray as You Go imaginative contemplation exercises I recommended in the last post.

Was it difficult or did you find it easy and comfortable? If it was difficult, please don’t give up but try this remedial version that I developed when I first realized the value of of the practice but was frustrated by my early attempts (here are directions for a toe in the water experience on this blog post). You can start with this while you work your way up to actually imagining yourself in the gospel scene. The goal is to eventually be able to watch what Jesus is saying and doing. Become part of the mystery by imagining yourself as a person in the crowd, a disciple, or the person Jesus is addressing. You may find that you encounter Jesus personally in the gospels.

Then, you may find yourself asking, “How do I know if that experience was really God or my imagination?”

I get it. After all, you have probably been taught that imagination is what a few really artistic people use to create things, but the rest of us are simply using them to imagine things that are just as likely to be unholy as holy. But let’s look at it a different way. First, as noted in the last blog post, we are all constantly using our imaginations whether we realize it or not.

The imagination can be a problem if you misuse it. And we all do. We have lustful or covetous thoughts. We have angry fantasies in which we verbally spar with our enemies, crushing them with our brilliance. Yes, we can misuse our imaginations. But let’s remember that the imagination is one of our God-given faculties. Just like our reason, will and memory, it can be used for good or bad purposes.

I would propose that the highest use of our imagination is to behold the Lord. in fact, I would suggest that the highest use of all of our God-given faculties is to know, love, honor and serve God.

I love what Bradley Jersak said a couple of years ago in an interview with Sue Carlson on her podcast about healing our Image of God. He suggested (this is my paraphrase) there are 2 ways to look at our imaginations [1]:

One is to think of it as a servant that can become unruly and take matters into its own hands. But we can say to it, “Imagination, today you will serve the Lord, which is your highest purpose. “

Another way to think of it is that it’s a stage. In this case, we ask who are we inviting onto the stage of our imaginations? Are we inviting strippers or violence onto the stage? We have agency and can say, “Imagination, today I am going to invite Jesus onto the stage.”

This of course leads to a simple answer to our original question, “was what I experienced God or my imagination?” To which Jersak simply states, “Of course, it was your imagination, and God visited you there.”

Instead of being afraid to use our imaginations in God’s service, maybe we should ask God to cleanse them and send His Holy Spirit to help us refrain from using them in ways that dishonor Christ. Let’s ask God to bless our imaginations unto His service and pray that they will be used for their highest possible service: to behold the Lord.

photo credits: Hal Gatewood @halacious

[1] This is not an endorsement for all of Jersak’s writing or speaking, it is simply an agreement with this very helpful explanation.