I believe many of you would agree that we tend to lose our innocence as we get more mature, and the realities of life move in. Some of us experienced trauma at an early age that skewed our innocence. The other day as I was in prayer, the Holy Spirit told me that I had made my imagination my God. I had elevated my imagination to a place that only God should hold in my life. It had become my safe place, my place of protection, and a place that I would run to hide from the harsh realities of the world. As the Holy Spirit unpacked this for me, I saw myself rushing home, shutting out the unpleasantness of the world, not answering calls to be alone in a world that I created. It was not perfect, but I had control, or so I led myself to believe. In this world, I could process things the way they should be. The only thing I left out was God. Fact is I was living in direct conflict with the word of God in 2nd Corinthians 10:5 “we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” As a child, I fought off loneliness with my imagination, teasing, the feeling of unworthiness when I arrived home to my fantasies. I was the opposite of all the things the world did not like about me. I was thin and beautiful. I was loved unconditionally. I was worthy of the attention of the knight and shining armor. This was my favorite coping mechanism growing up.
As an adult, I did not give it much thought because it was already built-in until the Holy Spirit revealed to me this was the place that was reserved for God. For me to leave behind the unhealthy habits of the past, I would have to allow God to heal them and give up my life of fantasy in exchange for Godly obedience and dependence. I had to let myself be vulnerable to Christ to live my best life and let go of the cycles that kept me hostage. The truth is, I had to allow room in my imagination for God to work. To release me from the limiting thoughts, like the thoughts that perpetrated the Israelites in Numbers 13:33, “We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” I used my imagination to play out how I thought others saw me—rehearsing all the negative aspects of my failures. God uses it to show me who He says I am. As stated in Psalm 13:14,” I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well.’ Let me encourage you today to allow God to capture your self-thoughts and replace them with a true vision of who you are created to be.
God loves you, and so do I.