Excerpt from Imaginative Prayer by Jared Patrick Boyd
This book is about connection. As a father of four girls one of my greatest desires is to pass on to them a deep understanding and awareness of the experience of God. My hope is that they would feel connected to God and the story God is unfolding in their lives and in the world around them.
Will they see themselves as part of God’s story? Will they feel close and connected to God as they navigate decisions that come their way, pursue risks on the horizon, and say, yes to all that God is inviting them into? This book is about connection because of the way Jesus asks us to imagine our life with him—he is the vine, his Father is the gardener, and we are connected to him. This is how we bear fruit. This is the image he gives us. This is what he asks us to imagine.
This book is also about formation. “Spiritual formation . . . is the intentional and God-ward reorientation and re-habituation of human experience.” Or, more simply defined by M. Robert Mulholland Jr., spiritual formation is “the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others.” Whenever we’re intentionally doing something to shift our experience or understanding of God, we’re involved in spiritual formation.
When we’re working, in response to God’s grace, to shift our thoughts, the patterns of our relationships, and our actions toward a greater alignment with the life and teachings of Jesus, we are doing the work of spiritual formation.
And when we help others in their journey of formation, we become connected to them and their story.
We share in their experience, and we too are formed by it.
This book is an invitation to connection with your child and to your child’s spiritual formation.
-From the introduction
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