This is the Truth Network. Encouraging prayer. God offers an open invitation for his people to talk with him at any time about anything. On encouraging prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the best-selling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray.
And now, here's James. Oh, I imagine that you're going to love today's encouraging prayer because that's what we're talking about. prayer and imagination. And we're not talking about cartoon characters here. This is more important than you might realize, James.
I love this Talbot, Robbie. Lately, I've been reading an author we both enjoy, George MacDonald. He was a pastor and author who lived in the 1800s, and MacDonald was an inspiration for both. J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S.
Lewis and others. And in fact, Lewis said that McDonald get this. Baptized his imagination. Oh, I love that. And boy, you can sure see that in some of the things that Lewis wrote.
Right, right. And just think about that. What could be more important for a Christian? than a baptised imagination. Because if we're to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, as scripture tells us.
That means that our thoughts and our imaginations, everything that goes through our heads. Needs to be filled and bathed and refreshed by the Spirit of God. And he wants to do this because when you're baptized, it's. Really, the spirit that's at work.
So, when that happens in your imagination, man. Yeah.
Well, so let's talk about what what this has to do with prayer. Absolutely. I get excited about this because it's such a redemptive and beautiful work that God does through it. Just start by thinking about the things that go through our heads as we go through the day. You know, we imagine any number of things.
We may have worries that get the best of us, or we play out scenarios for our work or our lives in our heads, or for people we love or people we don't like, you know. Or we think about that movie or that show we just saw, and we imagine the characters in that. We have a thought life. That Has to be given over to God, and that's not easy sometimes. I mean, you know, that's one of the reasons so many people struggle with pornography because they're stuck in a loop and they can't get out of it.
And when we start to let God work in our imaginations, It's really something he sets us free. He breaks us out. And there's so much to this. All right, let's keep going.
Okay, well, I mean, think about all that we see in Scripture: the images in Ezekiel and in the Revelation and Jesus' imaginative use of story, like the parable of the prodigal and so many others. Think about, you know, naming the animals. I mean, goodness, you know, the animals in creation. Think about the trees. Clapping their hands and the mountains breaking forth into Psalm and Isaiah, you cannot get away from the brilliant richness of imagination in Scripture.
And it's not just, you know, these things aren't real. This is the reality of God at work, and you don't want to miss that. Because once you start to see life that way, God is opening the door to the wonders of what it means to be with Him. Oh, baptizing your imagination. Right, right.
And think about what this has to do with faith. Scripture tells us that God. is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, right? And if we start to let that flow into our prayers, oh, that's... Beautiful.
So how do we go there? But when it comes to prayer, it starts with just, as we often talk about, asking for his help, right? Ask Sikh Naq. Ask him to help your imagination grow in the ways that he wants it to, to direct it. You know, it's kind of like a water course, if you will.
You know, help him. I mean, let him help. move the rocks to where they need to be. I mean, so that that you're filled with him and and his ways more and more. No, that's a great first step.
Well, then what?
Okay, then second, start to feel your mind and your heart. with things that help you to live imaginatively before him. You know, before you read God's Word, ask him to show you things. And let it take you places. You know, again, those passages that we mention, and it's all throughout the Bible.
Read C. S. Lewis, the whole Narnia series. Read McDonald's, The Princess, and And the Goblin, or the book that you love on the back of the North Wind. Oh, yeah.
A young boy, and he has these adventures on the back of the North Wind. And again, you can clearly see where when C.S. Lewis read these books, which there's a whole series of McDonald's fantasy books. Um that Had to baptize his imagination. He certainly baptized mine and gave me these ideas that.
Um You can run with God in these things. Like it says, if you can imagine actually riding on the back of the North Wind, well, that's what George MacDonald did and then takes you on adventures as a young boy. And I guess, and he writes so much about children because he wrote greatly on the idea of the childlike heart and that desire for adventure. And clearly, that's the secret to all those rides at Disney World. Yeah, you know.
You know, I've been reading The Princess and the Goblin by MacDonald and our granddaughter's visiting. And she's a little young for it, but you know, I've been thinking about her as a little girl. And it's just been so good to read. And this morning she crawls into bed and and my her mother, my daughter, used to you know, she pointed out that I have green eyes like the green goblin. Yeah.
In Spider-Man.
So I crawled into bed, Leilatti's between Carrie and me this morning, and I said, Oh, the princess and the goblin. My wife just kind of looks at me, you know. I th then certainly as as we're Yeah. uh thinking about this Yeah.
Well wait, I'll I'll get to the third part in a moment, but Yeah, I don't Let imagination affect what you do when you pray. Robbie, you have a way of praying that I love. We've talked about it before. You imagine that you crawl up into Abba Father's lap in the morning. Yeah, absolutely.
That's a big part of what I really, really look forward to in my morning prayers is getting to the point where I'm not asking for anything except To be in his lap, right? Like I just. Crawl up there and like, okay, Father, here we are. Where do you want to, you know, what do you want to talk about this morning? Where do you want to go?
And oh, the richness of just. His presence and having a relationship and You know, the other morning he he has to dance. And so we danced. And I you know, it's it's a joy. And God's Spirit is moving through that, moving through your imagination.
This is so good, James.
Well, let me wrap things up with a prayer.
So, oh, Father, thank you, thank you, thank you for imagination. What a gift you gave us. And, Lord, I pray that you would help us. Enjoy that baptism even more as we use it in prayer, that we take this invitation to go on those adventures with you in our imagination. We pray you'd help us to see things we haven't seen and go places with you that you have longed to share with us.
And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray.
Yeah.
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