Dare To Be Positively Audacious
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I want to propose a new spiritual discipline: the discipline of imagining.
For children, accessing the imagination functions as a second nature, an innate gift that can be activated without much thought or effort. At the snap of a finger, little kids can imagine most anything with ease. I can remember my imaginary worlds when I was a young boy: in my mind, I was the star of a full-blown basketball game played on the hardwood floor of my bedroom, a lawyer arguing a case in front of a jury, or of all things, a preacher using great oratorical skills to move a large crowd.
Yet, as we journey through life and enter adulthood, societal conditioning and pragmatic concerns often suffocate our once-vibrant imaginations. We become estranged from this innate gift. I propose, however, that we need to re-engage our imaginations and relearn this sacred skill that, for many of us, exists in our minds as a distant memory.
More than that, it is essential that we intentionally practice what I call “positive audacity,” or imagining in line with God’s plans for our lives.
By daring to imagine audaciously, we breathe life into the possibilities God has ordained for us.
As believers, we must be careful to do all this audacious imagining within our Area Of Destiny. When we begin to allow our imagination to run wild outside of the parameters of God’s plans, imagining can become a negative practice.
However, we can often find ourselves allowing our fear of becoming negatively audacious to prevent us from believing for anything grand in our lives. Our imaginations then lie dormant and are essentially useless.
To be clear, this is not about audaciously imagining a bigger house, a better car, a more expensive wardrobe, and so on. Those things are not inherently wrong, but this is bigger than dreams inspired by self-centered materialism.
Imagining takes energy and intentionality; don’t waste your imagination on something that doesn’t promote a higher moral value.
Instead, I encourage you to channel the boundless potential of your imagination into God's redemptive narrative for your life and for the world.
Only when we function within God’s parameters and cooperate with Him can He “do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20).
What will you choose today? Will you allow your fear of negative audacity prevent you from dreaming up and participating in the preferred futures God has called you to? Or will you embrace positive audacity, daring to dream boldly and participate wholeheartedly in the preferred futures God has destined for you?