Consecrating our imagination to God

After I had received a new filling or annointing of the Holy Spirit, an experience I believe is meant for every Christian to prepare him or her for public ministry, I began to have "dreams and visions."  At first, I kept thinking "I must be imagining all this," or just dismissing the new experiences as products of my imagination. 

Then one day, after I had one more time said, "This is my imagination," the Lord spoke, cutting across the lines of my thought:  Did you used to 'imagine' these things before?  As I thought about it, I realized with a shock that before I was re-filled with the Spirit, before someone prayed for me, the thoughts of my mind and imagination were only those of fear and of "the worst" that might happen.  There were no thoughts, dreams, and visions pertaining to God and to the Spirit.  I was living "without hope in a darkened world," as Peter describes our "former way of life handed down to us by our fathers."  But now I was picturing a new world, a future full of hope and of promise, and that brought joy---"by their fruits, you will know them," Jesus said.

At that moment, I dedicated my imagination to the Lord, to be used for His purposes.  No longer did I dismiss my imagination as "just.....," but now I began to see it as a gift from God.  And then, as I continued to read Scripture, I discovered that the world of images is the language of the heart, the primary way that God communicates with his children.  Imagination is not "daydreams," but a flow of inner vision, directed by the Holy Spirit---unless we have consented to turn it over to Satan instead. 

Our western mentality, inherited from the Greek culture, does not place any value on the imagination.  We consider ourselves rational, logical, intellectual beings.  But Jesus was anything but "logical."  If we try to "make sense" of what he says, it does not work.  The only way we can receive Him and His words is to open our hearts to him----as His words enter our hearts, they change our minds, and then, we understand. 

God reveals Himself to the poor in spirit, those who are "not much" in the eyes of the world.  To them, He gives the Spirit of Wisdom and understanding.  Christianity is a heart-to-heart, or Spirit-to-spirit relationship.  Often our spirits go where the mind cannot at first follow, but later we understand fully.  That was the experience of the Apostles who followed and believed Jesus, understanding fully only after the descent of the Holy Spirit, who opened their minds and enlightened their understanding.

If we spend time with God on a daily basis, and offer to Him the eyes of our hearts, He will begin to fill them with dreams and visions --- see Joel, Chapter 3. We won't necessarily understand at first the meaning of what we are seeing. Then it is up to us to ponder the images he gives us, as Mary pondered in her heart all that God had spoken to her.  It helps if we have a small group --- or even one person we trust--- to speak with about what we are seeing and hearing. 

To come to full maturity in our Christian life, we must learn eventually to integrate both head and heart, to use all the gifts God has put into us, to make us in His own image.  If He wants to speak in images, we must develop the capacity and receive and treasure the language of the Holy Spirit.  As we look at the Bible, we see that God did not give us a book of systematic theology, but rather a series of stories from Genesis to Revelation.  As with the parables of Jesus, the spiritual realities behind these stories must be prayed over and chewed over before we "get" them.  Often, the truths remain hidden until the Holy Spirit illumines them for us.  That is why the Bible can be read for a lifetime and still release revelation to us.  The images of God are rich and powerful to change us, if we will only mull over them.  That is why Psalm 1 says, "Blessed is the man who meditates day and night on the law of the Lord."  The Hebrew word that we translate as "meditates" actually means "mutters."  As God draws pictures for us, we must turn them over and over in our minds and hearts until the light of truth begins to shine out of them.