by Lan-Vy Ngo

I walk until I reach the bench I love and sit down.  Relaxing against it, I feel completely at peace.  Before me is the Rhone Valley of Switzerland, a breathtaking expanse of green plains, spruce trees, and wooden chalets spread out before the Alps.

This is the happy place I choose to imagine Jesus meeting me as the podcast prompts me.  Nestled in my favorite armchair, I feel the sun gently warming my face and hear him walk towards me, his footsteps soft and steady.  I try to look at him, but I struggle to fill in the details.  What color are his eyes?  What do his nose and mouth look like?  Does he sit next to me?  Touch me?  What would he say to me?  I hadn’t wondered before now, and I am enthralled.

For those of us who have been Christians for many years, the ways we are in relationship with Jesus have become second nature.  Yet they are formed around an extraordinary premise:  Jesus is not physically here, but he is with us still.  I don’t usually stop to think how I am in a relationship with someone I can’t see, touch, or hear.  But sometimes that tension comes to a boil, and I don’t want to just pray to God—I want him to actually come sit with me and talk to me.

Lore Wilbert acknowledges this hard tension in her wonderful book Handle with Care, recalling the disciple Thomas who needed to touch Jesus’s wounds to believe he was alive: 

“We’re a forgetting and doubtful people.  It’s why we keep returning to the things that feel certain today—namely the things we can touch and feel and hold in our hands… We’re constantly grabbing sandbags to weigh the balloons of uncertainty down: mortgages, picket fences, apartment leases, roommates, 401Ks, better cars, longer vacations.  Anything to remind us we’re the most real thing we know because, for most of us, we are the most real thing we know.  We, like Thomas, live in the in-between place where we can’t see the actual hands and feet of Jesus in front of us.  So we grab for all the other things we can see.  But the good news is that, also like Thomas, one day we will see those hands and feet” (210).

Maybe you’ve felt this struggle deep in your soul like I have.  Until heaven, intimacy with Jesus can feel like we’re looking at him through a window, our bodies on the opposite side of the glass. That’s why imagining him with me was so comforting. What I’m beginning to understand is though the physical—a hug, a soothing word, someone’s presence—can feel more tangible, the truth that I am in Christ and Christ lives in me, is just as real, if only I can be attuned to it.  When I imagine Jesus with me, I’m given new eyes to see beyond my limited perspective to this spiritual reality.

In this time of smaller social circles, socially distanced church, and masked faces, where real-life presence is painfully limited, our need to be aware of God’s presence with us is greater than ever.  Jesus became man to die for us, yes, but also so we could know him and relate to him intimately.  And that’s exactly what we can imagine: not a spirit or a feeling or a voice from above, but a person.

I often go back to that place.  That bench overlooking the Alps.  There, I look into his eyes and hold his gaze.  The image of his face is still hazy, the details incomplete, but that doesn’t matter.  He is with me.  Could God be inviting you to experience him in a new way?  Try taking a seat in your favorite chair, closing your eyes, and imagining him with you. He waits to meet you.

To learn more, these are great resources that will guide you through the imaginative prayer practice:

• https://bridgetown.church/teaching/bridgetown-daily/imaginative-prayer/
• https://curtthompsonmd.com/reflections/luke-322/