Imagination being redeemed.
Pete Greig is someone I consider a guru on prayer. I’ve learned beautiful prayer practices through his teachings. In his series on learning the Lectio Divina, he highlights this idea of using our imagination when interacting with the text as a practice of meditation. He presents the idea of having a “mental playfulness” to engage our heart with God’s word. Greig describes how our hearts are moved with emotion as we watch movies, listen to music, or read books. Yet somehow, we turn that dial down when we read the bible. He contrasted how applying logic to reading the bible feels trustworthy while using the imagination seems dangerous. As I listened to him teach, I quickly became aware that I didn’t believe God had redeemed my whole brain, only portions of it. I only believed that God redeemed the parts responsible for thoughts, memories, and understanding.
Brain rewiring
I have previously written about how God has designed us to be creatives, that we were made to create. So, how did I form this belief that my imagination is not trustworthy? As a physical therapist who has a decent level of understanding of how the brain functions and has also worked with traumatic brain injury patients, how could I not believe there is healing and redemption of the brain?
I’ve witnessed brains being rewired as they heal from physical trauma. Children who learn to re-integrate the connections between their brain and body, who become able to walk, eat, write, and speak again. Isn’t this the full capacity of the brain God has given us? A brain that forms new connections and helps a person return to the life they had with new ways of movement, processing information and interacting with their world. This is the powerful impact of neuroplasticity and it can be applied to physical, emotional, AND spiritual pathways to change.
Transformed thinking
For many years, I would recite to myself “I have the mind of Christ.” in desperate desire to transform my thought life. I had learned that my thoughts are not always pleasing to God or would lead me away from Him. While this statement is true, simply reciting that phrase didn’t hold the transformation power I hoped. I needed my mind to change to His way of thinking. Memorizing scripture was another practice I implemented in my desire to replace “worldly thinking”.
One season of my life, I carried a tiny wallet in my pocket that contained scripture memory cards, created by Navigators in the pre-smart phone era. I would pull out those tiny blue cards and flip through them on my lunch break or in moments of needing encouragement. This wasn’t some legalistic practice someone told me to do. I was compelled to saturate myself, heart and mind , in God’s word. It was one tool for rewiring my brain to understand God’s character and the way Jesus modeled for me to live. Transformed thinking was a launching point to an embodied life with Jesus. But, it’s spiritual practices that opened the door to a life of lasting transformation for me. Reading Scripture. Studying Scripture. Meditation. Prayer. Engaging my imagination to come alive while reading scripture is becoming a spiritual practice.
Cultivating my imagination
As I reflect on recent years, I notice how I’ve been cultivating the imaginative part of my brain as I learn to hear God’s voice. I engage in a prayer practice called Immanuel Journaling that is a type of listening prayer. I journal my gratitude to Jesus. Share my pain with Him. Then, activating my imagination, listen for how He would respond to me. Some of my writing has been generated through the imaginative parts of my brain. I elaborate on a biblical story as though I was one of the characters who participated in or observed it. Applying my imagination to the story and finding God breathes life on it in a new way.
With my imagination, I’ve wondered if the reason that Elizabeth kept quiet about her pregnancy with John was because of previous losses in her journey to motherhood? I’ve pondered what Mary and Elizabeth talked about for three months while they were together, carrying Jesus and John in their wombs. I imagine Mary present at the birth of John and returning home after witnessing the miracle of his birth.
An embodied experience
As I illuminate these passages with imaginative storytelling, I’ve felt unsure or even guilty. I have no bible degree, no initials past my name to warrant teaching others in this way. What if someone were to criticize these based on accuracy? It’s essential to study the bible and understand its concepts through historical lenses, theological accuracy, and even original languages. But, the bible is the LIVING word of God. Interacting with the scripture using our imagination helps it come alive within us! An embodied experience with the text.
We picture ourselves in the scenes, filling in the gaps of what might not be said in the text. The internal dialogue or the thoughts a character might have. We create visual images of the faces interacting with one another or what the journey from one place to the next looked like. Our ears tune to hear the sound of the crowd or the gentle voice of our Savior. We slow down as we read and take notice of a particular word or phrase. Or words that are repeated.
As a writer, who is also an avid reader, my mind gets stirred by stories, fiction and non-fiction alike. A sentence jumps off the page as I engage my mind or, more likely, my imagination, with the words. Maybe it’s a statement that makes me cry out Amen! Or, beautiful words strung together like a pearl necklace. Creating a treasured heirloom passed to the reader.
Mixed up desires
Are we so familiar with portions of the bible that our imaginations haven’t been enchanted by the mystery and compelling written word of God? And, can healing come through our imagination when we identify parts of scripture that might have been previously weaponized or misused to shame or hurt us? Can words that caused us pain be reframed as we imagine how Jesus would have said them? With compassion in His eyes, the tenderness of His voice, and His great love for His daughters.
Somewhere along the way, I think I misconstrued the concept that the “desires of my heart are deceitful” and entangled it with my imagination. The desires of my heart weren’t to be trusted so therefore, my imagination also couldn’t be trusted.
But God…
God is restoring the desires of my heart as I live a life surrendered to Him. That not all of the desires in my heart are deceitful, many are good, pure and true. They can be trusted as desires that He put in me. My trust in the good and true desires are being redeemed. If I can trust that He has redeemed my desires, I can trust He is redeeming my imagination! He is rewiring the imaginative parts of my brain as I become more like Him. Out of it comes stories of new experiences with Him, fresh ideas of sharing the good news of Jesus with others, and reclaiming creativity in my writing.
Couldn’t that be true of all of us? From artists to mothers to medical professionals to entrepreneurs to teachers to students. You fill in the blank with your calling. You have the mind of Christ, a whole brain where you can trust God speaking to your imagination and bringing forth creative expressions of the gospel, fresh insight into His character and His Kingdom, that allows you to bring the good news of Jesus wherever you find yourself today.