Your destiny will never come to pass if you don’t see it in your mind’s eye first. Why? Because your destiny is born in your imagination.
But our “imagination” can seem rather hazy. Wouldn’t it be nice if God made our destiny obvious? Why can’t He just give us each a Damascus Road experience like Paul?
While he diligently persecuted Christians and carried out what he assumed was God’s will, God knocked him off his high horse—literally. Jesus’ audible voice asked, “Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Struck blind, Paul endured three days of blindness before the Lord gave him a true vision of his calling—to preach to the gentiles.
Paul’s experience is rare. Most of us hear whispers or entertain vague thoughts. We wonder if God is talking, or the pizza we ate is muddling our brain. How do we discern God’s plan?
First, we must understand that God reveals our destiny through our imagination. We often assume that what goes on in our imagination has no substance and very little impact on our lives. We have been taught to see our imaginations as a realm of pretending. However, what we think about ourselves, God, and the world around us impacts our imagination. Thinking and imagining go hand in hand. They both happen in the brain.
Scientific research shows that what we think affects our emotions and actions.
Dr. Caroline Leaf gives scientific evidence from a Christian perspective of how changing your thinking changes your brain in her book: Switch on Your Brain: The Key to Peak Happiness, Thinking, and Health.
No wonder we believe meditating on God’s Word has power to change us.
But what is the difference between thinking and imagining, and why is that important?
To think means to reason, reflect, or contemplate, but imagination adds the component of creativity. Roget’s Thesaurus includes the words “envision,” and “pretend” in its synonyms for the word “imagine.”
However, there is a big difference between envisioning and pretending. If you envision something, you are seeing something in your mind’s eye that you would like to see happen in the future. When you pretend, you understand that your imaginings are fictitious and therefore have no outcome for your destiny.
Ponder that for a minute.
How often does God plant a thought in our mind’s eye with a vision for our destiny, but we treat it like it’s pretend?
You may ask, “How do I know if what I imagine is from God?”
There are many indicators we could talk about, but I’m going to focus on one:
DESIRE
When God created you, he also planned out your destiny.
Psalm 139:16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. The desires of your heart were planted in you before you were born. Therefore, if a creative thought stirs up that desire in you, that’s a clue pointing toward your destiny.
For example, if you desire to preach, teach, raise a family, or start your own business, those desires come from the spiritual DNA that God wrote upon your heart when you were created.
So how can you fuel your godly imagination?
Here are some instructions from scripture:
Write it down
Then the Lord answered me and said, “Write down the vision and inscribe it clearly on tablets, so that one who reads it may run.” Habakkuk 2:2
Journal your desires and don’t be afraid to add thoughts that come to you as you write. It’s okay to brainstorm about a dream in your heart.
Read it
Go back and reread what you wrote, add to it, and share it with people who will encourage you.
Imagine it
Practice imagining how to flesh out your dream.
Pray
Ask God how your desires line up with His desires. All His desires are bathed in love.
Believe
Paul prayed for his disciples to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge in Ephesians 3:19. In the verse that followed he said, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Eph.3:20
Whatever you have imagined, God’s plans for you are even bigger! Believe God can do the impossible. Remember, your destiny is born in your imagination!
