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Faith Imagined

Faith Imagined

Alisa Hope Wagner: Christian Writer

December 18, 2009

Imagination Quote Collection

I'm collecting Christian quotes about the imagination! Read to the finish and find out how you can participate!


I love this song because Lanae Hale uses her IMAGINATION! She is Peter running on water in the darkness trying to reach Jesus. Have you ever looked down into water from a bridge at night? It looks like an abyss of nothingness (Yes, I did go bridge jumping with my youth group in high school one cold February night. Shhhhhh . . .don't tell anyone ;-).

So Lanae is running on water in the middle of the night and the waves are crashing against her. The roar of the wind is all around her; but she knows that if she could just reach Jesus, she'll be safe from the storm! Can you just imagine that and relate it to your life today?! The imagination is an awesome thing! It helps us to meditate on God and His Word. It helps us to get our faith from our heads to our hearts!

Just today I read in John Piper's book "Life as a Vapor" that "One of the great duties of the Christian mind is imagination." This is so affirming to me because Piper is one of those intellectual Christians (I mean this in the best sense). I'm currently reading four of his books -- I started them over two years ago -- and they are like lean meat: you can only take a few bites then it takes about a month to chew and digest them.

The fact that Piper places so much emphasis on the imagination is very cool because the imagination has such a bad reputation. Many of us think the imagination is for creative, yet ditsy people or for new-age people who seem to make up the purpose of life as they go. Yet, here is a Ph.D. college professor turned pastor who firmly believes that the imagination is necessary for Christians! Wahoo!!! The imagination is awesome!

Though there are many uses for the imagination in all sorts of fields (science, sports, therapy, etc.), I want to highlight its use in meditation. Meditation is extremely Biblical. Just go to Bible Gateway or Blue Letter Bible and type in "meditate." You will get a ginormous list of verses! Meditation is used to fill our minds with God and His Word; It is not used to empty our minds into some sort of empty, blissful state.

When we meditate, we can ponder scripture, which means we mull it over in our minds until the Holy Spirit can get understanding through our dense and cluttered brains. We can memorize scripture, which works best when a verse jumps up and hits you! Or -- my favorite -- we can use our imaginations to understand the stories in the Bible better and God's character better.

We can imagine Jesus is sitting there next to us while we pray (which He is). We can imagine that the world around us disintegrates and we are at the foot of God's throne (which we are). We can draw or paint a picture of truths that we have discovered in the Bible (I did this with the Tree of Life -- I'll have to show you sometime). We can take a story from the Bible and play it out in today's time (e.g. Instead of Jesus dying on a cross, we can imagine Him dying in an electric chair or by lethal injection). Or we can imagine that we are there in the story, which is what Lanae does in her song.

The imaginations adds emotion and depth to the Bible and God and gives us a viewpoint that we would never have if we just read it. There are a lot of Christians with a head full of knowledge, but we want to be Christians with hearts changed for God. Try it out. I think you'll enjoy it. I wish more Christians were wearing their yoga style pants, smelling their rooms up with incense, carrying their grass mats into their closets and meditating on Scripture and God. We would shock the free world!

In order to show my love of God's gift of the imagination, I will be compiling a list of imagination quotes from the published writings of Christ followers. And I need your help! When you are reading your Christian books, articles, journals, lyrics, etc. and you run across a quote about the imagination, send it my way. Make sure the writer is a Christian and not just a pretty sounding false prophet. I don't care how spectacular a false prophet's writing is. If I don't see JESUS, I ain't (and I say "AIN'T") reading it!

If you find a gem or write a gem, send it to me and I'll give you credit! I would liked Faith Imagined to be the leading web site with the MOST imagination quotes written by Christians!

To visit the collection click here.

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July 22, 2006

Imagination Quotes

For more information regarding this collection or to submit a quote click here.


"This is something people have struggled with since the beginning: how to talk about God when God is bigger than our words, our brains, our worldviews, and our imaginations." - Rob Bell: Velvet Elvis

"My imagination flows through God's eyes." - Nick Vujicic: Life Without Limits.

"Dare to give it a go and to soar as high as your imagination will take you." - Nick Vujicic: Life Without Limits

"We need to quit praying out of memory and start praying out of imagination." - Mark Batterson: Wild Goose Chase

"Rather than ignore our imagination, I believe we should fuel it with Scripture, allowing it to step through the doors that Scripture opens." - Randy Alcorn: Heaven

"One of the great duties of the Christian mind is imagination." - John Piper: Life as a Vapor

"Imagination may be the hardest work of the human mind. And perhaps the most God-like." - John Piper: Life as a Vapor

"Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning." - C.S. Lewis

"In accord with his original intent, the heavenly Father has in fact prepared an individualized kingdom for every person, from the outset of creation. That may seem impossible for us. But we do have a very weak imagination toward God, and we are confused by our own desires and fears, as well as by gross misinformation. It is a small thing for him." - Dallas Willard: The Divine Conspiracy

"Animals can never have an imagination in the way we do, because imagination is the work of the spirit." - Dr. David Yonggi Cho: The Fourth Dimension

"Above all he wants to keep us out of that Promised Land of blessing beyond imagination that is the province of the spiritually mature believer." - Karen Hancock: The Angelic Conflict

"I'm out to activate your faith and inspire your imagination." - Steven Furtick: Sun Stand Still


"I confess that the devil doesn't have the right to work in my mind and imagination." -Rick Renner: Sparkling Gems from the Greek

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Faith Imagined Title's Inspiration

Faith Imagined is what I live by. The things I value most in life, I cannot see. I value God, heaven and the human soul, and I have faith that they all exist.

I read the Bible, and I use my mind's eye to see, feel and touch the God-created images. The stories woven in God's Word are filled with the promises of God. I find these promises and claim victory with them. They help me to fulfill my highest calling -- to love God and to love others.

I hide out in caves with David and whisper psalms of praise to God.

I cry out with Jeremiah about chosen people who have forsaken their true love.

I run from the empty tomb with Mary Magdala and wonder what will happen next.

I proclaim the Gospel with Paul and feel the power of God rising from my weary bones.

The imagination is a gift from God. It enables us to take knowledge from our minds and pour it into our hearts. The imagination is our creative license from the Creator. He has designed our path, but He wants us to paint the colors along the way.




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