Every believer needs to nurture these faculties.
More research on the potential of imagination to exert powerful, transformative effects for good in people’s lives. Susie Neilson reports in Nautilus on how prison inmates used time in solitary confinement to imagine new lives for themselves (“How to Survive Solitary Confinement,” Jan/Feb 2016).
By determined effort to envision themselves in various situations, inmates have been able to make significant rehabilitative gains. Ms. Neilson notes that these same results can be seen in athletes who imagine themselves doing certain things as part of their preparation to compete. Imagination, or “mental imagery,” “is associated with higher cognitive processes and abstract thought – as well as perception and motor control.” She adds, “As a result, mental imagery is an ideal portable training tool.”
Further, she explains, imagination works best when other stimuli are reduced – as in solitary confinement.
Imagine how much power believers might be able to harness for their Personal Mission Fields if we spent more time in solitude setting our minds on the things that are above, and envisioning how the Kingdom of God might come to light in and through us within the context of our own callings.
T. M. Moore