Should Christian Creatives Participate in Visualization?

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I'm going to start this episode with a trigger warning. This word might drive some of you to turn off this episode, and if so, I totally understand. But I wanted to prepare you in advance. Here's the word visualize. Now, for some of you, you said no big deal, but others of you, you immediately thought of, wait a minute, is this about new age and manifesting and making goals happen out of nowhere and becoming your best self?

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And that really rubs you the wrong way in terms of your faith? Well, I understand. However, visualization is part of our core as creatives. So how do we navigate this? How do you visualize without crossing a line into being something that you're not?

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And how do you use this practice the right way? I'm going to help you figure that out in today's episode of the God and Gig Show. Give me just a moment to welcome those of you who are new to our podcast, and then we'll get right into this extremely important conversation.

00:01:13
Hello, and thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for making this podcast a part of your creative day. And if you're new to our show, let me tell you why you're in the right place at the right time. As a musician, creative entrepreneur, someone who works not only in the mainstream, but also has a heart for ministry or for the church, we're here to help you to solve those temporary creative problems that you're dealing with with timeless spiritual principles. That's what we do here at guiding gigs.

00:01:42
So I appreciate you joining us. Make sure you subscribe. Click the notifications on whichever app you're using so that you're notified every time we bring out new content that will help you become the creator that God created you to be. Now, this concept of visualization and visualizing your goals is not new. It's not something that just showed up in the last 30 40 years with self help books.

00:02:06
This is something that has been around for a long time, but it has been very controversial for a long time. Now, as I'm speaking, I'm telling you that our book, God and gigs, and our cOnfident, creative blueprint, which you can find at God and gigs 360, do contain elements of visualizing. We say the word visualize your goals. It's part of our seven step process. We talk about respecting the business right before this, and then it spells out service.

00:02:35
So after we respect the business, we say, visualize your goals. Now, if I say that, I'm clearly saying that I'm okay with visualizing, or visualization in a sense. Let me tell you what I'm not talking about. I don't believe in this idea of, if you see it and you think it, it will happen. I don't believe that God gave us this magical ability to simply see things and speak things, and suddenly they appear and manifest them.

00:03:05
I do believe that God gave us a part of his creative power in which life and death is in the power of the tongue. And we can speak things that we want to see, and we can start moving in the will of God toward things that he wants for us, and then we are moving in obedience. But I don't believe we simply see things and they happen. What I believe is what the Bible says. What is really happening when we talk about visualization?

00:03:33
What I'm talking about is seeing through the eyes of faith. What I'm saying is not looking at things just to make things happen. I'm talking about creatives. We have an ability to see things that aren't there yet. It's not the same as trying to make something happen.

00:03:51
It's realizing that I have an imagination that is made by God, and that by using that imagination, the ability to imagine, I can start to see a projected and a possible future. And seeing a projected and possible future is very biblical. As a matter of fact, it's what God did with Abraham when he took him out before he even changed his Name, and he showed him the stars, and he said, let me show you a picture or image of what your descendants will be like. It will be like the stars. It will be like the sand.

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And so he didn't actually show him every single person that was Ever Going to be living after Abraham followed through with his faith. No. God showed him an image or a picture or a visualization of something that would help him see the breadth and the scope of what God was going to do. So what I'm going to apply to this particular topic of visualizing your goals is how do we, as Christian and creative believers, do better at visualizing what God has already shown us and wants to show us, and then align our goals and align our creative abilities to that vision? So if we see something that we want, or we see an idea, or we see something in our mind's eye, we imagine it, we do first have to say, wait a minute, this is not within my ability alone.

00:05:18
This has to line up with what God wants for my life and his vision for my life. The Bible talks about without a vision, the people perish. Right? We heard that Scripture many times. But the question is, whose vision is it?

00:05:32
Whose visualization are we following? If it's just ours and we're only going by what we think, see, and feel, we are in danger of going down the wrong path, of simply looking for things that we want and saying things that don't really have a spiritual connection. That does not mean that every goal has to be spiritual. It simply means we have to check ourselves, because we as creatives, we live in a space of imagination, and there's nothing wrong, again, with looking out and saying, I would love to be this, see this, be this, and feel this, and have this, and say, that is part of my visualization as I try to say the word. My question and my challenge to you is to always visualize what God is visualizing, to see God's vision and to see with God's eyes.

00:06:29
And as a Christian creative, as a creator that's created by God, you have an internal compass, the Holy Spirit, that will help you see what he wants you to see. And here's where I believe this really comes down to your goals. Now, I talk about in the book and in our creative blueprint about visualizing your goals. So we talk about writing vision statements. I don't get much into vision boards.

00:06:53
Some of you might have vision boards, which is grEat. I'm saying to simply writing down a statement, a vision statement is simply, again, writing down, making it plain. As Habakkuk says, write the vision, write it down, and make it plain. So we're talking about taking a vision, something that you see that you know God has put in your heart and putting it down on paper so that you can then evaluate where you are and then compare it to the vision of where you are going. That part, I believe, is entirely biblical.

00:07:26
I believe that it's entirely within the realm of what God wants us to do. And it is. Again, visualizing is simply taking what we see in our mind's eye, in our imagination, that we want for our future. Whether it's a goal for your creative career to have this many downloads, to have this many album sales, to work with this person, all of those things can work in conjunction with God's vision, because God sees it all, and he already knows everything that's going to happen, but he wants you to be involved, which means he does want you to see with the eyes of faith. The Bible says very clearly that if you see something in the natural, there's no reason to hope for it anymore.

00:08:08
You don't have to look for something that you already have. You have to look for things that you don't have you have to see them before they are apparent. And so seeing with eyes of faith, I believe, is entirely different than visualization and the idea of trying to manifest or see something that isn't and then suddenly make it happen simply by the power of your own mind. So I wanted to make sure that was clear before we moved any further into the visualizing your goals step. But once you have that clear, then yes, you need to step into actually saying what your vision is for your creative career.

00:08:47
Now, back when I started this and I wrote this first template, it was all about writing down specific goals for musicians. But clearly, I'm talking now about every single facet of your life. We're talking about physically, we're talking about your health, your emotional health, your mental hEalth, your creative health. How are you going to visualize where you can be and where God is challenging you to go? I've been reading this book recently just for some ideas about growing our vision and making it bigger.

00:09:19
And it's called Ten X is bigger than two X. Now, I'm not telling you that everything in that book is once again biblical. It's really just a selfhelp psychology book. But there are some concepts that I would say are very helpful. And one of them is that thinking of a big goal is actually easier than trying to reach a small one.

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The idea is that when you think of a huge, big goal that's almost impossible to reach, it immediately takes away all the little options of trying to make just a two X goal, because you don't have to make a lot of adjustments to reach something where if I just want to lose two pounds or eight pounds, I don't have to do much, I just have to eat a little less. But if I want to run a marathon, everything has to change. And immediately I'm faced with only those options that actually make changes. And so even though I still have to make little adjustments, those little adjustments are leading up to a big change. So now I don't make those little changes with the idea of, okay, if I just do a little bit of this and I'm done, there's really nothing else to reach for.

00:10:25
Now. I realize every little adjustment I make is leading toward a huge outcome that keeps me motivated. And so we celebrate the small wins while having a big vision. And that is the connection that you need to make when you're visualizing your goals. Think about a huge vision that is almost impossible, but then once you break it down, you're breaking it down to the small wins and the small things that you're going to change day after day to achieve that vision in your creative life.

00:10:54
I hope that makes a lot of sense to you. If you want to get more into the whole visualizing your goals, you definitely should check out our confident, creative blueprint. It's part of our guiding Gigs 360 program. It's our membership. You can check out the link in the description to find out how to get into that and how to be a part of that.

00:11:13
I'd highly recommend it because there's a lot more detail that I can't really get into in this particular episode. But remember, visualization is not about manifesting. It's not about being this all powerful being that can somehow make things happen. We don't believe in that here in God and gigs, but what we do believe in is seeing with the eyes of faith and seeing something much bigger than what you see for yourself and seeing what God sees. The Bible says that eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for us, which means his vision for us is way bigger than what we can imagine.

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So instead of simply limiting ourselves to our vision, let's look for God's vision and expand ourselves to what we might even not think is possible. And then take the small steps throughout the next year so that you can reach that vision and stay motivated on your goal. Remember, you also need people around you to do that. Once again, that's something you can find in our membership and in our communities. So I highly suggest you find out about that by clicking the link and joining us in God Engage 360 or our free Facebook group.

00:12:26
Well, my friend, that's our episode for today. Hope that helped and explained some things and made it clear why visualizing is a part of your creative life, but using it in the right way. God bless you and until next time, continue to become the creative that you were created to be. God bless and I'll see you next episode. Thanks for joining us here at the God and gigs Show.

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Please leave us a review on iTunes, like our Facebook page, or visit godandgigs.com and tell us what you thought of this show. We'll be back soon. In the meantime, go create something amazing.