Godsight, Part II: When your imagination takes you places you don't want/need to go

We continue the interview from Wednesday with radio host personality and author, Lael Arrington about her book, Godsight.

SE:On Wednesday you shared how RA caused you to live in the "what if's". Stories in your imagination that allowed you to be whatever you wanted to be. Your book, Godsight focuses on what you call the “redemption of our imagination.” In fact you get pretty personal, which I appreciate. Let's talk.

LA: According to a study cited in Psychology Today only about half of conservative Christians feel sexual fantasies are "morally flawed or unacceptable." In today’s world of virtual adventures and relationships, what difference does it make if what delights and engages us is real or imaginary?

The answer is that choosing escape can suck our energy for real life dry. If we truly want the Life God offers, we find it and him in reality, not fantasy and distraction. “Whatever is true…think about such things.” If my imagination is constantly captivated by daydreams, entertainment, and virtual reality then I won't have the creativity or the energy to seek God with all my heart or live each day seizing the opportunities to build his kingdom.

And I do not grow or change or become the person God desires for me to be when my challenges are virtual. When the challenge is on a screen behind or in front of my eyes, when there's no real danger or risk, my adrenaline may pump, but I don’t have to summon real courage or live with a keen dependence upon God and his resources. I don’t have to pray and wait patiently for God to come through.

Can you imagine a gamer or a daydreamer seriously crying out to God for help to overcome the enemy in their game or their dreams? “God help me defeat____________!” “Help me knock ‘em dead in my day dreams of my class reunion.” Depending on my attitude, I think my escapes reinforced my weakest, most indulgent self and kept me from growing. They fed that subtle “I’m-so-worthy-I-deserve-more-than-real-life-offers-me” unapplauded pride.

SE: As you tell your story in Godsight, you describe how you grew up as a “Tap Dancing Cosmic Blonde.” What does that mean?

LA: I love the image of tap-dancing for performing. That face that remains smiling and still while arms and legs wind up into a blur of motion. I grew up tap dancing with one foot in God's Kingdom Story, and one foot in my own small performance story. Down deep I really believed that life is a stage. And if I'm pretty and smart enough, and tap-dance well enough I'll be a star.

Although my hair was brown, I was a “Cosmic Blonde.” The way David Brooks explains it in his book, On Paradise Road, (with deep apologies to anyone whose hair happens to be blonde) a “Cosmic Blonde” is a condition of the soul—jet skiing along the surface of life, oblivious to the deeper meanings of the story or motivations of the heart. I tap danced my way through my childhood, youth and early adult years self-satisfied, book-smart but unreflective and enjoying the party of life. The “simple” soul in Proverbs on a winning streak. Perhaps in affluent America most of us grow up a little Blonde.

SE: You grew up with a fairly intellectual faith that slipped into duty and resignation. Why do you think that happened?

LA: First of all, because I'm way too passionate about my own ideas. So I struggled with choosing God's way over my way. I was also much more passionate about the world of ideas—Truth as precepts and principles—rather than the truth-maker as a Person. But as I said earlier, we live from our affections. If our affections are set on acquiring knowledge of God's Word but not in face time getting to know God we can find ourselves living in that daily taffy-pull between what our hearts want over here and what God wants over there, leaving our souls feeling thin and stringy in the middle.

I think it's good to ask ourselves, "Do I enjoy God? Do I delight in worship?” If our hearts thrill more to studying about God than being with God, if we honor him more out of duty than delight, then we can become prone to escape into some private field of dreams where we reassure the Holy Spirit that we're still doing our good Christian duty everywhere else and this is okay because recreation is just recreation. It's neutral.

SE: You describe how your faith grew into a relationship of much deeper intimacy and delight in God. What milestones marked your own journey? What did you learn about what the Bible teaches about how God grows our vision and passion for him?

LA: Just as the Bible offers no 1, 2, 3 formula for seeking God with all our heart and finding him, Godsight does not offer five simple steps to open the eyes of our heart to a vision of God that transforms our duty into delight. It acknowledges right up front that this is a work of God's Spirit in which we cooperate, but don't seem to have control.

Godsight does examine the Scriptures that tell us how we see God, both in physical reality and spiritual reality. But the study is woven into a chronicle of my own journey, not because I have such an extraordinary tale to tell but because God looks so good in the telling of it. And because the way God has captured my imagination and changed my dreams is a case study deeply true to Scripture of how he shows himself to us…

…through the enablement to choose his dreams when everything within us wants our own and… …through the pain he allows into our lives.

Sometimes when we choose God it is a way out of suffering. But sometimes it is a way into it. It gives God the green light to bring in his heavy machinery that cracks up all the false images we set our sights on and the rickety supports we depend upon. In the onset of my disease I did not often sense the nearness of God in my suffering. But he was engaged in deep heartwork I couldn’t see. God redeems our imagination through …

…the people he sends to cast his vision into our lives.

Some people take great delight in doing their duty. I wish I were one of them. In his mercy, God has brought me along behind some of those people on top of the sand dunes—the ones that really see and celebrate him. Vision inspires passion. The vision of God I've seen through the eyes of others has illuminated a God who never wanted me to settle for living small in duty and resignation. He has too much Life to give me. God shows us his heart through… …a deeper imagining of God’s kingdom Story.

God has scripted a setting, characters, a creation/fall/redemption plotline with flashbacks and suspense—all of it to display the glory of his heart. Godsight compares our dreams to what the Bible tells us about both God’s dreams and Satan’s dreams and challenges us to think about the direction in which our own dreams are moving. It’s a vision that ignites our passion to move out and take risks as Kingdom-builders, offering Jesus to the world. God grows our vision as we…

…seek him with all-our-heart intensity.

We’re invited to seek God with an intensity that honors his desire for us. For so long, all I wanted was a little bit of God a few times a week. Most people I’ve interviewed echoed this part of my story: when we finally move past the discipline to discover the treasure of prayer and meditating on, imagining the reality of his word, we enter the immediacy of God’s presence. Perhaps nothing focuses our vision on God like…

…the pain of failure and humiliation.

Many of us have felt the pain when our children reject our values and vision of life. We can feel so betrayed and at the same time, we feel the pain of God laying open our pride in our own little image bearers. Many of us have poured ourselves into work that someone slices and dices, or maybe just yawns and ignores. When the Enemy hits us with failure, it can be a golden opportunity for God to expose the pride that hides. We can respond in distance and anger like the prodigal son’s older brother, or we can fall into the Father’s arms. When God opens our eyes to the true guilt and shame of our failure, the Enemy, in turn, is happy to unload truckloads of false guilt. As I walked through a year of brokenness on these counts and more, God came nearer than ever, speaking healing truth and grace to my heart. God fires our imaginations through…

…a refreshed vision of eternity

Eugene Peterson has said, "Hope is imagination put in the harness of faith.” Hope is letting a Technicolor vision of that holiday by the Crystal Sea pull me through days of pain and out of the swamp of resignation and duty. We grieve the loss of our strength and beauty—The Way We Were when our muscles were taut and our neurons were firing. But as we fix our eyes, deliberately turn our imaginations, on the biblical glimpses we’re given of Jesus waiting for us in his City, we see the splendor that surpasses all the mud pies in the slum.

SE: Thanks, Lael, for sharing your insight and thoughts with us. This is a great book!

Lael is the radio host of Things That Matter Most KSEV Houston. She is a prolific author and speaker. If you want to connect with Lael Arrington or check out more about her book, check out her website.