Teach Us to Pray Pt. 6 :: Imaginative Prayer

In John 15, Jesus proclaimed, “apart from me you can do nothing”. In saying this, he invites us into a deep, intimate connection with Him. Not just for ourselves but that we may bear fruit for the sake of the WORLD.

Prayer, as we know, is the blood flow of life in the kingdom. It’s the air we breathe, the food that nourishes our souls, and the drink that quenches our thirst.

Yet for many, it has become too easy for our prayerful connection with Jesus to be pushed to the margins of our lives - squeezed into brief moments between busyness and distraction. 

For others, prayer comes hand in hand with disappointment. Years of seemingly unanswered cries have left many feeling confused and forgotten.

But it’s time for us to reimagine a life of prayer infused with purpose, hope, and power.

Together, we’ll press into what it means to develop a CONVERSATIONAL life with God — both in the secret place AND in communal agreement.

We’ll expand our imagination for what prayer is and what prayer can be.

Both intercession & contemplation

Adoration & petition

Silence & singing

Lamentation and delight

It all belongs together.

Join us for a season of seeking God together.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Thanks for joining us today as you listen to a portion of the message recorded at Vine Life Church in Boulder, Colorado. If you'd like to connect with us further, you can visit us online at www.vinelife.com.

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It's so good to be back with Vine Life. I consider you guys family at this point. I think I warned you early on that I'm kinda like a stray cat. If you feed me, I come back. And uh you have fed me well, and here I am. Luke, you're gonna be waiting a long time for that royalty check, buddy. I just uh but you can keep giving me great ideas. Uh I I don't mind that. I will say too, um, our good friend Brandon Willett is with us traveling on this trip, and Brandon did the cover for this book. So it really is a collaborative work. And uh Brandon is the marketing and design director for The Breath and the Clay, and he's also an incredible friend and uh painter. He painted with us. We did a live event in Denver Friday night, which was um a live podcast uh on the subject was art as incarnation. And uh Brandon was with us painting live on that. And uh it's been such a fun time. This this was actually the conclusion of a tour that I've been doing since August of live podcasts in different cities um on different themes. We did one, Art as Healing, in Charlottesville, Virginia. We did one as Art as Inheritance in Maryland, and then we did one in Phoenix, Art as Hospitality, and here it was art as incarnation. Uh but Luke told me that you've been on a journey of exploring different forms of prayer and different ways of engaging God in prayer. And so the piece to this puzzle that I'm hoping to bring this morning is imagination and uh the role that imagination plays in our prayer life and in our spiritual life. And as Luke was saying, as Luke was stealing from my message, um, that creativity is not uh for a select elite, it's not just for those that would identify as an artist. And I want to add to that as well that the imagination is not just for um those that would say I'm a creative type or for the um the artist. But the imagination is a foundational part of what it means to be human. And the imagination is the language of the spirit. The imagination is the womb of the spirit, if you will. And I'm gonna unpack what that means to me uh scripturally and through some of my own experiences. But Lord, uh, this morning we want to hear from you because you have the words of life. And so we turn to you to hear from you this morning, and we turn to you for those words of life that you have. And so we just invite you here to sift the words that I say, may the gold shine and may the sand fall away. Amen. So I want to start with Genesis, where, and you guys have heard me say this before, but just to lay a quick foundation. One of the first things that God did, matter of fact, the first thing that God did with humanity when he formed Adam in the garden is that he invited humanity into his creative process in the act of naming the animals. So after God creates the cosmos, God creates humanity, and then the first thing that he does is he invites us into his creative process. And I love what the scripture says because it says that whatever Adam called the animal, that was its name. Whatever Adam called it. Think about this for a minute. The creator of the cosmos who formed all things out of nothing, the imagination of God, he speaks forth and all things come into obedience and come into being. God then, in his humility, steps aside and gives humanity the opportunity to contribute to his creation. That forever blows my mind. And it says that whatever Adam named the animal, that's what it was. Now, we know the story when we go forward. The fall of man happens in Genesis 3. And what's interesting is moving forward from there, in Genesis 6, the first thing that God grieves over after the fall of man, as it said, God grieved that now the mind and the imagination of man is perpetually bent toward evil. So let's think about this for a minute. The first thing that God cultivates in humanity is the imagination. The first thing that God grieves over after the fall of man is that now the mind and the imagination is bent toward evil. So this is a lot more important than just if we um paint pictures or write poetry. But there's something fundamental and foundational about our humanity that God is saying about this imagination. And I believe it's this there's a word in the scripture there for imagination called, and forgive my Southern North Carolina interpretation of the Hebraic language, but Yetser. And this word Yetzer is the word for imagination, and it's one letter apart from the root Yetzar, which is used for God forming the human being. So there's a relationship between the Hebrew word for making something, for something being formed, something coming into tangible reality, and something being imagined. So there's a relationship between the imagination and physical reality. Matter of fact, there's a Hebrew word called devar that is used for word. And this same word devar that means word also means object. Also means thing. And so it makes sense that you know God spoke and it and it came into being. So what does all this have to do with imagination and prayer? Because the imagination is the womb of the Spirit, and what we conceive in our heart is what we're going to practice in our lives. And in the same way that when God spoke it came into being, our imagination has the same power and potency to influence and shape the reality that we walk in. One scripture that I find so fascinating on this idea is 1 Peter 1.13. And this is one of those uh funny scriptures that just sound so foreign to the way we talk in modern times. But in 1 Peter 1.13, he says to gird up the loins of your mind. All right? So let's gird up the loins of our mind. What does that mean? Well, if if it means to strengthen something, to protect something. To gird something up is to make it secure, to, you know. The loins are the reproductive system. It's the it's the area of the body that encases the reproductive system of the human being. So strengthen the reproductive system of what? The mind, the imagination. What does that mean? It means that in our imagination is where we conceive that our minds are reproductive. And the word there is Dianoia. That's the Greek. And uh to gird up the loins of our mind is to protect the place that reproduces what we walk out. One more scripture that uses that same word that you're familiar with is Ephesians 1, 17, right? So check this out. This is Paul telling us about our inheritance as sons and daughters of God. And he says, I pray, his prayer is that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, that the eyes of your heart or the eyes of your understanding, that word understanding is dianoia. The same word that is translated in other parts of the Bible as imagination. So Paul is praying that the eyes of our imagination would what? Be enlightened. Let's break that word down. Um photizo, I think, is how you would say that for enlightened. It's the same word that we get photograph, photography. So he's praying that the eyes of our imagination would become photographic. So why? So that we can see and we can know what is the hope, the expectation of good for though um of his calling, of his invitation. And again, I that goes back to God's invitation in Genesis, the invitation to partner with him in the creation and the cultivation of the earth, that the eyes of our heart, the eyes of our imagination would be full of light and photography, that we may know the hope of his invitation. What are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints? So I want to suggest that the imagination is God's gift to us to begin to see in the spirit. The imagination is God's gift for us when Paul says seeing things that are invisible. We look not at the things that are visible, but we look at the invisible. How do we see invisible things? We see invisible things through the mind and the imagination. We see into the spirit through the imagination. How many times, especially here at Vine Life in this type of community, someone will come up to you and say, brother? No, maybe they wouldn't say that. They would in the South. I see a picture. The Lord showed me a picture, and I see this ship on uh this turbulent sea, but the ship is stronger than these waves, you know, and they start. What are they doing? They're imagining, they're seeing something in the spirit through the photography of the spirit, through the imagination. I love this right here. I'm just gonna jump around to some scriptures, but Revelation 1. If there ever was a mystic, it's John of Patmos. John on Patmos. The Apostle Paul was a mystic too. If that word freaks you out, that's okay. He's the one that called us the mystical body of Christ. John says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet. And he goes on, and he says something really strange, but he said, Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. I turned to see the voice, not to hear the voice. I turned to see the voice. And he goes on and he explains this vision when having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girded about there's that gird again, and girded about the chest with a golden band. His head and his hair were like white like wool and white as snow, his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like fine brass. And he goes on and he and he continues to express these visions that he's seeing in the spirit. It's his imagination working in concert with the reality of God's presence. See, how many times have you heard, well, that's just your imagination? That's just the imagination. And what that means is they're they're they're posing that over against reality, but I want to say that's not just your imagination. That's your imagination, that's the language of the spirit. When Jesus met with Nicodemus in the night, and Nicodemus is asking him how to understand this invisible kingdom of God. What does Jesus do? But he begins to use the language of metaphor. He begins to use the language of imagination. He says, You must be born again. He gives this picture, this image, and of course Nicodemus is struggling with this, and he's like, Well, how can I enter the womb again? He's taking it literal, and Jesus is like, No, no, okay. And then he says, You're a teacher of Israel and you don't understand this. You may not have thought of it that way before, but Jesus is saying, understanding the language of imagination is important. And he says, if I'm telling you things that have earthly comparisons and you don't understand it, how can I convey heavenly reality to you that doesn't have earthly comparison? So Jesus is saying that there is a preeminence on the imagination and on the language of metaphor that's important. So, how do we translate this into the place of prayer? One more note if you said, Well, I'm not very imaginative, uh, I want to challenge you on that because you sleep at night. And whether you are conscious of your imagination or not, your imagination is alive and healthy when you're asleep. And I want to suggest that the same language of your dreams is the same language that John on Patmos is using, and I and the same language that Isaiah is using, Ezekiel, all of the prophets. It's no coincidence that the majority of the prophets were written in poetic form. Because there's this connection between the imagination and the creative and the dream life. And so when you go to pray, or I and my prayer for you today, and I want to pray a prayer over you before we leave, uh, that the eyes of your imagination would be awakened in a new way. But when we go and we pray, I want to call us to a posture of listening. I think Luke said you guys have also done some uh talking about contemplative prayer and and the and the place of listening, the place of beholding, and the place of um bearing witness to the visions that God speaks to us. Because he speaks the language of picture. And when he speaks that language of pick of picture to us, and we can quiet our hearts, then we too can turn to see the voice that speaks. To see the voice that speaks. I love that. One really cool example from the Five Creativity Killers book that is just fun to share with you on. There was um, well, there's a chapter in here on religion that my wife made me rewrite five times before she'd let me publish it. But in this, I talk about this painter named Veronese. Um and Veronese was commissioned by the Catholic Church to paint a depiction of the Last Supper that was going to go on the wall of the church. Now, at this point, uh Leonardo da Vinci had already painted the Last Supper, and he had already kind of set the standard of what the Last Supper looked like in the minds of the people. Well, Verenese decided uh to paint the Last Supper, taking place in a Roman Parthenon, which was the epicenter of worldliness in that day. It kind of represented worldliness. And in this painting, uh there are drunken men in flamboyant costumes, there are midgets, there are jugglers, there is a dog sitting in front of the table of the Lord, and there is just all kinds of wacky stuff happening. There's a parrot or a bird or something there. And so he paints this beautiful painting, this imaginative uh depiction of the Last Supper. Now, even when I'm saying that, I bet some of you are saying, that sounds a little blasphemous. That sounds a little doctrinally incorrect. But he was brave and he took it to the church and he ended up in front of the Inquisition being charged for blasphemy. And he's one of the only people that faced the Inquisition and left with his head still on his shoulders. Uh they tried to tell him, look, we won't kill you if you'll replace the dog with Mary Magdalene. I mean, it's kind of humorous, you know, but and he said no. He said, on grounds of artistic integrity, I can't do this. And he fought back. Now, let me present a different perspective on this to you. When I think about the world we live in, does it not ring true to you that in the midst of worldliness, that in the midst of chaos, that in the midst of drunkenness and flamboyant costumes and animals and all the chaos, right in the center of that is Jesus offering communion. Do you know what I'm saying? It doesn't sound so blasphemous when you look at it from that lens, right? And so I'm saying that the imagination and the images that God wants to give you in prayer, in the place of intimacy with Him, they may look a little wacky. They may not make sense, but if we follow Him, the imagination is going to lead to a revolution in our culture. I don't think you understood the weight of what I just said. Our imagination is meant to work in concert with God to bring about cultural transformation. Let me give you one more example. Acts chapter 10, and we'll end on this one. Peter's hungry. He goes up on the rooftop to pray, right? He's waiting for lunch to be made. He goes on the rooftop, and it says that he falls into ecstasis. He falls into a trance, he falls into an altered state of mind. He falls into this experience, and he sees the heavens open. And, you know, we we um the the sheet comes down and all the animals are in the sheet. This vision that he is imagining in the spirit defies and goes against all of his doctrinal understanding. The same way that Verenice's painting very much flew in the face of the cultural understanding of the Last Supper. He sees a vision that challenges his theological understanding of God. And he doesn't say, get behind me, Satan, you gave me a false imagining. He just told the Lord, no. And I love what that says about the intimacy of his relationship with God. Is he got this vision from God, he got this imagination, this experience from God, and God said, Rise, kill, and eat, and he said, No. And then they they that this thing continues to happen and he goes through this. But essentially, when Peter was willing to trust God again, walking out of the boat again, trust God with something in his imagination, in the spirit that was received in prayer. It opened the door for the Gentile world to come into the kingdom of God. It brought cultural transformation. And maybe I'm taking this a little bit too far, but I love to play with the idea that think about this for a minute.

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Adam was invited into the creative process, he named the animals. When Noah was called upon, which by the way, um what did God do for the vision of salvation? He gave Noah a vision. He uh he gave him the blueprints, he taught him how to make something, he appealed to the creative part of mankind and gave him the blueprints to build an ark. It was God continuing to partner with mankind creatively. So Noah builds the ark, and what does God fill the ark with? He fills it with the animals, the very thing that he partnered with humanity to make together. He filled it. It was almost like he was saying, I am redeeming and I am saving the creative partnership that I intended from the beginning. And this falling away, this uh this Genesis 3 falling away is not going to diminish, not gonna deter my intention of partnering creatively with humanity. And so in Acts 10, is it too far of a stretch to see that it's the animals coming down from heaven in a vision that God is saying, it's creative partnership, Peter. And when Jesus, they asked him, How do we pray? he said, Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. And he talked about Jacob's ladder. What did Jacob see? He saw this ladder between heaven and earth, the angels ascending and descending. He saw a vision. So my point is this your imagination is a gift of God. And in the place of prayer, God wants to awaken the eyes of your heart, to awaken the eyes of your imagination, to begin to see in the spirit the cultural transformation, the personal transformation, the community transformation, the family transformation. He wants to show you these things before they ever come to pass. So that we can bring them from heaven, from the realm of the spirit, from the imagination, to the realm of the tangible and the physical. Does that make sense at all? I know I'm I'm just saying this is a lot bigger than just do we paint, do we write poetry? This is about God showing us something in the place of prayer. And I want to I want to ask you to and challenge you to begin to say, Lord, would you awaken my imagination? Show me what you want to do. You know, when it when it says that when God said, I won't do anything without showing it to my servant, Abraham, to my friends, the prophets, I don't do anything without showing it. The imagination is where we can see what God wants to do next. That's why the prophetic and the imagination walk so closely hand in hand. And I think that as Peter was just going about his day, God wants to break into our mundane with a new ecstasis, with a new imagination, with a new vision, with a renewed vision for vine life, with a renewed vision for boulder, with a renewed vision for your own heart. I believe in the upcoming days, God is going to begin to show you visions in the spirit, in dreams at night. If you say, Well, I'm not one of those imaginative ones, just go to sleep and he'll do the rest. He wants to begin awakening your imagination because God wants to reimagine vine life. You guys are in a season where God is reimagining vine life. He's reimagining, he's reimagining Boulder, He's reimagining this area. I see a fresh canvas. This is funny. Peter saw a sheet coming down. I see a stretched canvas coming down. And he wants to bring this new stretched canvas so it's gonna stretch some of you. Because you are that canvas coming down from heaven. And he's gonna take you and he's gonna stretch you, and then he's gonna nail it on the wood. Haha. And he's gonna give you a new shape. And on that, he's gonna paint something that the people, the citizens of this region are gonna come and they're gonna see what God paints on vine life. And they're gonna encounter him and they're gonna see the reality of the kingdom through the painting that is your life. Matter of fact, it's gonna be one of those Mary Poppins moments where, do you remember in Mary Poppins where he painted the picture and then she goes into the painting with him? What God wants to paint through vine life on this new canvas that he's stretching is he wants to paint a picture that people can enter into and come through the doors of vine life and enter into the spirit. Because you guys are the gatekeepers of the imagination in this region. You guys are the gatekeepers of what God wants to do in the spirit and in the creative. And he's reimagining something, he's reawakening something here. And you're gonna see colors that you haven't seen before because when you get in step and in concert with what God's gonna do, you're gonna begin to see new visions, new animals coming down from heaven, new partnership, new blueprints of arcs that are gonna bring salvation to the world, new things that God wants to say to you, whatever you name it, that will be its name. Why? Because God honors the creative reflection that He's placed inside of you. And so, you know, we're like, well, we want to do what you want us to do, and God's saying to us, well, what do you want to do? Well, we want to do what you want to do. Okay, well, what do you want to do? That's the partnership. And when, and, and when we come into that place of intimacy with him and begin to seek those things out in prayer, watch what happens. Five, ten of you are gonna start seeing the same vision. And when you come together, you're gonna be like, oh my gosh, I saw that same thing in prayer. And then somebody else is gonna say, I had a dream three nights ago. And you're gonna begin to see what God is painting on the canvas. And what's gonna happen in vine life in the upcoming days is gonna be so amazing, this stray cat is gonna come back to witness what God is doing. So, Jesus, we receive the reawakening of your imagination in us. See, here's the thing: we we we heard that scripture that said, beware of vain imaginings, and so we began to believe that imagination was bad. But that's not what he said. He was talking about fruitless imaginings. There's a difference between imagination and fantasy. So, God, we received the reawakening of your vision, your Ezekiel vision, your Isaiah vision, your what you said to Jeremiah, Jeremiah, what do you see? Vision. The Jesus one, uh the the John one, when Jesus said to them, What do you see? We receive that question that Jesus comes to us and he says to us, What do you see, Vine life? What do you see, vine life? And it's in the place of prayer that God wants to begin to cultivate and massage that answer. What do you see? And so, Father, right now, just by the authority of your spirit, I just release and I blow a fresh wind of creative imagination over this house to reimagine what you have in store. Where you've seen ashes, God wants to show you beauty. Where you've seen vacancy, God wants to show you seeds popping through the ground. Where you've seen no pathway, God wants to show you the way. And I just see these footprints made of light on the water to show you the way. So, Father, we receive the reawakening, the reimagining of your imagination, of your vision, the fresh vision that you have for vine life. And in Jesus' name, Lord, I just pray that you would uh plant the seeds of what you want to grow in the coming days, that you water the seeds that have been planted in prayer in this house. And we just pray blessing for what you desire to do. And I just I bless that creative reflection of your nature in every single person here and every single person uh represented as a part of this family. We receive your creative partnership, God, your invitation. In Jesus' name. Amen.