Growing Intimacy with God through Imagination
Five years ago I took an important step in increasing intimacy with Jesus: I got a new puppy! I expect that’s not a usual recommendation for improving one’s spiritual life, but God specializes in using what we delight in to draw us closer to Himself, the true desire of our hearts. (Psalm 37:4) As I cuddled my little white fluffy puppy who constantly gazed at me with adoration, I was reminded of the shepherd and lamb in Psalm 23. I began to picture myself as a little lamb, carried in the arms of a loving shepherd. That led me to picturing that shepherd looking at me with the same type of unfailing love I saw in my puppy’s eyes. As time went on and I focused on imagining that loving gaze of Jesus, I felt at home with Him in a way I never had before.
I could put myself in the place of the beloved in the Song of Solomon or as a little child with her loving Father and really experience God’s love in addition to knowing about it intellectually.
Praying with our imagination helps us access deeper parts of our being.
It can unlock the experience of God’s love in a way that gets past our intellectualization, trauma, and patterns. We can keep “a repository of images, myths, symbols, and metaphors” (Taylor, 2004) inside us to draw from when we need to experience God with us. Scriptural imagination helps keep us focused on God as He has revealed Himself rather than imaginings that naturally fill the vacuum in our hearts and minds. Images like my puppy are not from Scripture, but they mirror the Scriptural truth of God as the good shepherd and His relationship to His sheep. When I picture God in a way that is not explicitly revealed in Scripture, I pray and ask Him if He is pleased with that image and invite Him to change it if He is not. Sometimes He will bring to mind another image that complements how I am imagining HIm. I love to picture Him wrapping me in the blanket of His love somewhat like Song of Solomon 2:4 describes “His banner over me is love”, but He also invites me to ”worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire.’” (Hebrews 12:29)
So how do we start praying with our imagination? Krispin Mayfield offers some helpful exercises to get us started in his book: Attached to God: A Practical Guide to Deeper Spiritual Experience.
4 Exercises to Start Praying with Your Imagination
1. Flip through old magazines while thinking about closeness with God. What images stand out? What pictures display an emotion that you’d like to feel? Notice what they are telling you about how you perceive closeness with God. Tell God about that.
2. Think of someone who likes you, even a pet. Close your eyes and imagine their face when you first greet them. Notice how your body feels. Consider what it would be like if this is how God delights in you?
3. Draw or imagine a picture of you and God, even using metaphor for either or both of you. Notice your postures, how big God is in your picture and how big you are, how distant God is from you or you from Him. Talk to God about what stands out to you in your picture.
4. Close your eyes and imagine yourself walking. In the distance you see a person walking toward you. As He gets closer, you realize that it’s Jesus! Imagine how He looks at you and what His tone of voice and body language are like. He greets you by name. Wait and imagine what He says next. Say whatever you’d like and wait for a response.
Try these prayerfully, asking God, who most clearly revealed Himself through Scripture and the coming into the world of Jesus Christ, to show Himself to you in a deeper and closer way.
References
Mayfield, Krispin. Attached to God: A Practical Guide to Deeper Spiritual Experience. Zondervan, 2022.
Taylor, Gabrielle. Imaginative Prayer. https://conversatio.org/ 2004.