“Bored with Prayer? Use your Imagination!” by Joy Margetts: 7 Ways to Pray blog series

24 Jun 2022

What a wonderful post from Joy with some simple but profound ways to pray with your imagination. I love her idea of the prayer walk in one’s local community even from one’s own home, and think of how meaningful that could be not only for us as we pray but for our neighbours.

Bored with prayer? None of us would actually admit to it, but I think we have all been there. We sit down to pray, we have our lists, our prompts, our determination. And yet five minutes in our mind is wandering, and we are planning what to cook for dinner. There are lots of ways of helping us to stay focussed when we pray. I regularly use prayer lists, mnemonics, and indeed the words of scripture to pray. But I have found that when my prayer life is beginning to feel stale and routine I need something else. So I use my imagination.

That may sound a bit dodgy – can we trust where our minds take us?

We are creative beings, made in the image of a creative God. And I believe He has gifted us with our imagination. As a Christian Fiction writer I understand that now more than ever. My stories are inspired by Holy Spirit, using the vehicle of my imagination. And Jesus Himself taught some of His most profound truths by engaging the imagination through parables and stories. So I can trust my imagination if it is surrendered to God, and the things I use it for grounded in scripture (Phil 4:8).

So how do I use my Imagination to pep up my prayer life?

First of all, I invite Holy Spirit to be in it. I use worship music to welcome Him into my prayer space, but a simple prayer of welcome and a moment of surrender is enough. These are just some of the ways I use my imagination to enhance my prayer life.

Praying for myself:

This is perhaps the easiest. I picture myself walking with Jesus, holding His hand. I don’t have a problem with this act of intimacy as I believe it is how we were designed to be – before the fall, Adam walked in the garden with God (Gen 3:8). Jesus and I walk together through a beautiful landscape of grass, trees and mountains, alongside a sparkling river and I just tell Him about my concerns. And I listen, because He often speaks back to me. Sometimes I even feel the squeeze of His hand on mine.

Praying for my friends:

I picture myself before the throne of grace. I know that I am welcomed there because of Jesus (Hebrews 4:16). As I stand before the Father I imagine the person I am praying for is standing beside me. I have in effect taken their hand and led them to the throne of grace. I thank God for my friend and what they mean to me, and then wait for a moment to sense what God might say about them too. Sometimes He tells me to tell them something to encourage them. Other times I just pour out my heart for them to Him. Invariably I end up in tears, sensing the love He has for them.

Praying for my community:

Many of us know the power of prayer walking. I can’t do that so much today, so I use my imagination instead. I walk the streets of my town in my mind and pray for the businesses to be blessed. For the people I know, stopping in my mind at their front doors. For the schools and the care homes. For the areas of deprivation and need. I find it a really helpful way to focus and often a deeply moving experience.

Using my imagination doesn’t necessarily replace other forms of praying, but it does help to add variety and colour to my prayer life. If you are finding prayer hard, for whatever reason, why not engage your imagination and see what happens?

Joy Margetts is a blogger and a published author. She is also a retired nurse, mother and grandmother, with a lifelong interest in history.

Her debut novel The Healing was published by Instant Apostle in 2021. A work of historic fiction, set in medieval Wales against the backdrop of Cistercian abbey life, it is also a story of faith, hope and God’s redemptive power.

The Pilgrim, her second full length novel, will be published by Instant Apostle next month.

For more information on Joy and her writing, and links to purchase her books, go to her website.