The Living Story


You can set goals until you're blue in the face, but if you're not in a loving relationship with God you're just spinning your wheels.

So what's missing? You're doing all the right Christian things. You're active at church. You pray and study the Bible. You even read all the right Christian books.

But you wish you knew Jesus better: the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus who taught and loved and laughed and cried, the Jesus who died and then rose to new life. You wish you could have known him when he was here, could have listened to him, and could have talked to him face to face. But it's too late for that.

No. It isn't too late. Today, right now, you can walk in the pages of the Bible. You can talk with Jesus, laugh and cry with Jesus. God isn't bound by time. When we see ourselves speaking and walking with Jesus, we really are. It's really happening.

Meeting Jesus in this way is a very old form of Christian prayer: simple, powerful, and life-changing. This kind of prayer, imaging prayer, can help you to:

o Personally encounter Jesus.

o Experience healing and restoration.

o Break through your blocks and resistance to Christ's work in you.

Learning Imaging Prayer

When we were children, our imaginations were on fire. The richness and depth and possibility of life were amazing, astounding. It was only later, thanks to a slow, destructive process that happened over the years, that we came to mistrust and repress our imaginations.

It doesn't have to be that way anymore. Using your imagination, you can join Jesus in the gospel stories: Jesus risen, Jesus alive; waiting to walk and talk with you.

You can practice imaging prayer in the gospels by following four steps:

1. Choose the story you want to experience.

2. Get ready to enter the story.

3. Enter the story and watch it come to life around you through the God-given gift of your imagination.

4. Record and explore your experience.

If you would like to go deeper, you can find this article with more detail www.christian-goal-setting.com/Articles/livingstoryintro.htm. God bless you!