I need to share a bit of background or my testimony won't make any sense. There is a scripture meditation technique where you apply your imagination to something you read in the Bible. The goal is to try to imagination what it would have been like if you been there for that event. This technique has been around for hundreds of years, and I first learned about it in seminary. I don't know all the right terminology for it, so I call it "pretending" to be there (or a "pretend" for short.) It is an attempt to focus your attention on God and His word and to try and use your imagination to His glory at the same time.
It was actually a big deal for me to start using this technique, because I had been in bondage to a spirit of fantasy for many years before being delivered from it. I assumed that if I used my imagination at all, it would give ground back to the enemy, so I shut it down. Then the Lord began to speak to me about it. He asked me to trust Him and to commit my imagination to Him and to ask Him to redeem it, so He could use it to His glory. That sounded like a good idea to me, so I began inviting God to use my imagination to His glory.
Shortly afterwards, the Lord exposed me to this spiritual meditation technique for making Scripture come more alive by imagining with it would be like if you were there.
That is the background, and now let's move into the testimony...
The Lord woke me up very early Monday morning to pray. One of the things we did during that prayer time was to review the previous day together. The previous day had been Sunday and for some reason the worship time at church had been a bit of a struggle for me. Usually I get lost in worship and really come into God's presence. But yesterday I was distracted and I had difficulty keeping my focus on God. My thoughts keep wandering to this dream someone told me about just before service, and what the interpretation for it was. I felt really bad that I could not focus my attention on God and honor/worship Him properly. It almost felt as if I had snubbed God during worship. I spent a lot of time apologizing to Him about that, but I still felt bad.
Then the Lord changed the subject and reminded me of a passage from yesterday's sermon. It was the passage where Jesus drove the money changers and livestock sellers out of the temple. The Lord invited me to mediate on that passage and to imagine what it would have been like if I had been there.
Since God was the one who suggested that I engage my imagination for His purposes, I invited Him to come into it with me. Then I began to imagine what it would have been like if I was one of the merchants that Jesus drove out. I came up with a scenario to put myself in the picture. I had a small merchant booth to sell calves for sacrifices. It was just a tiny family business; my husband took care of our little heard and each day I would take a few of them to the temple booth to sell. It was not a lucrative business, but we got by.
Then I imagined Jesus coming into the temple courtyard, dressed in a light-colored robe made out of coarse material--the type of clothes that a working-class person of that day might wear. At first I sized Him up as a potential customer, but He seemed really upset as He looked around at the merchant booths. I decided not to approach Him, but I watched Him from a distance. He became more agitated as He walked the area, then left for a little while. He came back with a whip and began snapping it on the livestock, shouting that the temple was to be a house of prayer and not a market place. He hadn't gotten to my booth yet, but animals were scurrying everywhere and people were upset and shouting.
Now please understand, I knew this was all my own imagination painting a scenario, and not some type of vision or supernatural encounter. But I was getting into it and I started to imagine how I would feel in these circumstances. First I would have some resentment to Him for messing up my business place, and then I would be frightened when He got closer and I saw how angry He was.
He had not gotten to my booth yet, but He flipped the money changer's table over and coins went scattering every which direction. Some of the beggars who hang around the courtyard ran over. They started picking up the coins and pocketing them. Even thought these men were stealing, Jesus ignored them. His attention was focused on the merchants, and He had an angry expression on His face.
Then Jesus got to my booth. He looked pretty mad as He cracked His whip. I thought that He was going to hit me with the whip, but it never touched me. However, it hit my animals and sent them scattering out of their little pen. Jesus looked at me and said, "My father's house is meant to be a house of prayer. What are you doing to it?" I felt ashamed and looked down. Then he walked past me and continued on to the next booth.
I thought that perhaps I should go gather my livestock. I was still frightened from my encounter with Jesus, but I felt this conviction settle over me about what He said to me. Then I realized that maybe I should be praying. So I forgot about my scattered livestock and went to a far corner of the outer court that was farthest from all of the commotion. I knelt down to pray, and I started to pray and repent.
At that moment I crossed over from imagination to reality. I remembered how I had not entered into the worship on Sunday as fully as I wanted to, and I did not give God the respect and honor that was due to Him. I still felt bad about that, especially since He had done this amazing physical healing in my life last Wednesday. I felt like I should be expressing more gratitude to Him than I had been. So instead of repenting in the pretend, I was now repenting for real. That went on for several minutes and then I went back into the "pretend."
I was the calf merchant again, praying in God's temple court and asking Him to forgive me for having contempt for His House of Prayer. At that point in the pretend, Jesus walked over to me. I expected that He was going to come, so I wasn't surprised
He was still holding the whip, but He was not swinging it or shouting or knocking anything down anymore. He wasn't in a rage, but He still had a bit of a displeased expression on His face. I was surprised at how scary He felt to me. My mental image of Jesus is of a compassionate, loving and forgiving Lord. I am not used to the idea of Him being overtly angry at me. I was seeing a side of Him that was not used to seeing--His righteous anger--and that was scary to me.
I crossed back into reality and through about my distraction during worship. I wondered if the Lord was angry with me for that. I felt afraid of Jesus (for real) right then, because I knew I did not honor him like I should have at church yesterday. I felt doubly bad about not worshipping because of the wonderful healing I'd received at His hand earlier that week. And I felt a bit afraid of Him, thinking He was mad at me.
I did not like feeling frightened of Jesus, so I crossed back into the pretend and was back kneeling in the outer court of the temple. (I did not realize that Jesus was planning to follow me and enter it "for real.")
"So you decided to listen to Me and go pray?" He said.
"Yes."
"So, Teresa, let Me ask you a question. Why did you go to pray to the Father in the courtyard instead of coming directly to Me?"
"Lord," I asked, "Are we still in the pretend, or are you talking to me for real?"
"Well, you invited Me to come into your pretend, didn't you?"
"Yes." But I did expect Him to actually show up in it in an active way. I was a bit caught off guard and not sure how God wanted me to react.
"Here I am." He was speaking to me in that still small voice that He likes to use. "Now let's get back to My question. Why did you go to the Father just now in the pretend instead of coming to Me?"
It was one of those questions where He wanted to tell me the answer. He did so by dropping information in my spirit. I was reminded of the time, many years ago, when I used to be afraid of God the Father, and was always looking to Jesus to protect me from Him. Now it seemed like the roles were reversed. Jesus (with the whip) seemed like the scary one and I had been running to the Father because He felt safer to me. Then I realized that I did not fully trust the Lord, because if I did, I would not have been afraid to come to Him.
"Teresa, you need to learn to trust Me even when you feel guilty or unclean."
He paused for a few seconds to let that sink in, then He said, "OK, let's repeat this meditation."
Then I was back in my imagination, again standing at my un-scattered pen of calves. Jesus was back at the other end of the row of merchant tables, overturning them and scattering livestock. Again He came to My booth and again I ended up at the far corner of the outer court to pray. But this time when I started to pray in the pretend, God the Father broke into the pretend for real. He asked me why I had come to Him to pray instead of going directly to Jesus.
It hadn't even occurred to me that when I repeated it, I had the option of changing my behavior. I did not know what to say to Him. I thought to myself that we I did it a third time, I would be sure to go directly to Jesus that time. But God was not interested in having me repeat it a third time.
First He told me that He was not angry, hurt or offended that I had not been able to worship Him very well yesterday at Church. He told Me to stop apologizing to Him for that, and to stop focusing on my failure and start focusing on Him and why He is worthy to be worshipped.
Then He asked me what I had learned from this pretend (e.g., from meditating on the passage where Jesus overturned the money changer's tables at the temple).
I had learned that He had a righteous anger side, and it was very scary to see that side of Him. Then He asked me how I should respond to Him if He ever showed that side of Himself to me personally. I knew my natural tendency would be to want to run away and hide from Him. But I also know that wasn't the right response.
I answered, "I guess it would be to run to You and repent."
"Yes, it would. You see, I won't stay angry at you if you truly repent. I am more interested in restoring My own to right relationship with Me than I am in punishing them."
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