Hey everyone. Sean McGuire here with the counseling team at New Vision. Ready guys? Hey, we are back and today we have an exciting presenter. New Vision’s very young Caleb McKean who is fantastic. If you ever want to see a therapist named Caleb, this is the guy that says Caleb actually helps you to get to the heart of issues. He specializes in marriage and is a great marriage counselor Edmond. He’s really good with kids. Raising them up could see her Sean, and we just welcome and invite you today because he’s got something very special to say. But I take back thoughts. You know, so many times the devil has captured our imagination and made us serve it and him by getting anxious, depressed, and fearful. And today kids is going to help you to determine how you can make your imagination which God created, serve God, which blesses you. All right, so here we are.
All right. So I wanted to talk a little bit about imagination in maybe a different way than you thought before. That imagination that we have is so important and it’s so vital to taking control of your thoughts and uh, it can indicate a lot of where you’ve been putting your worst. Um, I remember as a child, I don’t love to play outside. I love to imagine things that were, I don’t know why he goes superheroes. I was a Ninja with a Yucca street cause I grew up in New Mexico. Um, whatever Yuck is tick is, I’m not sure Debbie Clark,
uh, but I enjoyed playing outside in most people when I talk to them, they do enjoy playing as children. But something happens when we get older and when we go get older it seems like we don’t have an imagination or maybe what if it’s our imagination actually changes from being the best, the greatest, the most beautiful, the strongest to worry. Fred, how many to pay the bills? How am I going to accomplish that task? Am I good enough? Am I worthwhile? If these questions ever go through your head, you’re probably dealing with something that’s, that’s affecting your imagination. So this is where I really want to invite you guys in to, um, imagine with me what it looks like to have healthy imagination. Um, so Ben, have you ever had an experience where you’ve thought of happy thoughts and um, just felt different after thinking about happy thoughts?
Yeah. Times just really thinking about really positive outcomes and things like that because that resonates with me a lot of times in this pattern of really imagining the worst or imagining what’s going to happen, whether, whether it’s not or imagining how like the snow last week, imagining how that’s just going to mess up everything and doing this. And um, at one point I caught myself like, why did they imagine the fun that could be there, right? The fund that could come out of this or imagine what I could do at that time if it does open up, rather imagining, oh no, right, what’s going to happen? What am I gonna do with this? And so I found it kind of Nice to say, you know, no matter what happens, I can see myself having fun with this time doing something cool. It might be with the family or it might be, yeah, on the website, something like that.
That’s, that’s exactly right. When we imagine negative things, we actually put ourselves in a place, a state where it really affects, um, how we function, how we process, what we feel inside our bodies and then the emotions that are translated from those feelings. So we really want to take our thoughts captive here and imagine the best of things rather than the worst of things. Um, so, um, maybe you’ve experienced a time where you thought of, um, an event that happened years ago and all of a sudden you feel exactly that you’ve been put back in that event and that’s effecting the way you are thinking and feeling towards other people. Um, why, if you just simply changed how you looked at other people and the best of lights, what if you thought of somebody in their most potential arena ever that they are the best person you can ever imagine, maybe even your enemy in a positive way. Your in laws or your in laws. Mary Dan Laws, Florida, we love for them. So, um, this can be something that you can do at home, just imagining where you are, uh, and then it becoming the place where you want to be and seeing how you feel different in your body. You feel different in just how you’re thinking in clarity of mind. That’s very important in itself. Um, are there times where you felt like you’ve reached your potential? Um, because you thought about it long enough and you imagined how you’re going to be, I know Sean here, he imagines always being bigger, stronger, and faster. And he’s talking about being a supermodel today, so he’s going for a new avenue of, um, career, not marriage counselor Edmond.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of either I wanted to be a Christian counselor. You don’t change the world one person at a time or moved to Hollywood and this kind of following a trap. But I chose counseling. It surprising, but I did.
Yeah, we’ll do that. Imagination sets a path for us. It’s an avenue to healing. Um, it’s an avenue to really allow us to, to take part in what we can be rather than what’s not happening. Um, anybody want to speak to that?
So I think what’s cool is if you look right behind [inaudible], we have a this doc that’s a perfectly amazing pitcher that Caleb gloves and we can imagine and we can use our imagination to go anywhere in the world right now. But can you imagine being there? I can imagine putting my feet, I can imagine smelling the salt water. I can imagine what that would be like because it’s cloudy here today in Oklahoma and I think that our imagination was created by God. And I know a lot of Christians get bogged down because so much of the new age movement, other religions use imagination in ways that aren’t godly. And so we have kind thrown the baby out with the bath water. When I think God in what you’re saying, Caleb, is to really partner with the way that God designed us and to imagine what could life be like?
You know, you say I’m always imagining bigger, greater, stronger. Yes I do. I live in a world where I’m constantly like, God, what’s possible? You know, what can we do? What? How can you change the world through me? How can you change the world through the people that we serve? I serve with? And I think all of us have been given that capacity and then opportunity, even a marriage counselor Edmond. And you said something else about potential. Yes. So I think for me, I reached my capacity, which is my ability to use the time that I’ve been given, but I don’t know that I’ve ever reached my potential cause my potentials in Christ and Christ’s potentials throughout eternity. So I, I don’t know that you haven’t reached that. That’s a great segue to my next point here is that it’s a collage Collagen’s three is one of my favorite verses is so that in the Bible it says, set your mind on things that are above where the Messiah seated at the right hand.
When I was, um, years ago thinking about this verse, I was, I was thinking, what does it mean to set my mind on things that are above or in on heavenly things? And oftentimes when I think of heaven, before, I used to think that there are angels on clouds playing harps and singing. And then I got kind of discouraged and you got kind of bored. And I was like, that’s what heaven’s like. Well, if I paired that with the rest of scripture where Jesus says, I only do what I see my father do, I only speak when I hear my father speak. He’s imagining one his father’s doing in heaven. If I can imagine what Jesus wants for your life, now I can pray into that avenue and begin healing. Or if I want to do it in my own life or my wife’s life or my children’s life, or if you want it to do it in my own mind, for me in my life, that would be an important place where we can really start to see a vision for people’s lives.
So I think it’s important when we take our thoughts captive that we replace every fearful worry. Some thought that we’ve had before with positive love based God filled thoughts about what God wants for our lives. That includes you. It includes your dreams, your aspirations, your desires, and I just wanted, I just want you to imagine what you can walk into when you start setting your mind in different ways. While I think you did a good man, he’s doing good today. Hey, so I wanted to say that one of the practices that I typically do on most days is I’ll write down three things that I’m thankful for each morning. It’s really good and I’ll, and I, and I don’t, you know, it doesn’t change my life every morning, right? And I don’t, I don’t start like, oh my life is different. But I think the accumulation over every day for years and years and years creates new neural pathways that are well worn.
And something else I do at night is I select at least one experience I’ve gone through that day and I sit back and I imagine when I was, when it felt like what it smell, if it’s a smell, smell, orientation, what it sounded like, and I relive through my imagination that had positive experience. You know, recently I took a trip with my son Hayden, and it was just truly incredible. I mean, it was, it was as good as it could be. We had adversity, we had opportunity, we met a bunch of people in the way. It’s a great journey and I have been reliving that so much each day just savoring what God did and those spaces that we had together. And I think so many times in life we get so enraptured by the bad because the bad just stinks and it’s hard and we don’t like it. That we minimize. It moves so quickly past the good that we missed out on what God wants to do. He wants us to marinate in the good. He wants us to extract, to enjoy, to revel in the gun and he wants us to deal with and surrender the bad to him, walk through it, but not to stay there. So I think if we use our imagination to flip it, that’s good. Then life can be different. There was a scripture. Sure.
One of you were using today about an imagination. What was that scripture? Ephesians three 20. Um, for him who is able to do a measurably, immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine. I think that’s really cool to think God’s imagination. Yes. So much in store for us. And we can’t even come close to that level and understand that level and it makes you wonder center just to limit our imaginations. I can, what can God do with me or what, what does this, and we don’t really understand what happened. The divine imagination up there. It’s just a really beautiful thing to think about. Um, and kind of add, and one way I look at this is sometimes I’ll say one thing. I’ve heard it this way, that anxiety Julie, imagining the future without God in it. Yeah. And I think that’s a really good way to look at it because if I can look at my day and so I got this and this and this going off, I imagine God being part of that.
What if I imagine a God who will give me what I need in those situations as we’re told. Um, the other thing, Caleb has done this with me a few times, but also looking back in your past and imagining your past with God in it. Because as we look back as a marriage counselor Edmond, we don’t have any imagination this kid, and that brings us to, to seeing God and how he can use everything, even those painful things and marinas. I feel like that’s where a lot of healing can come from is when you can see Jesus, where ever you had the most pain in your life and are a lot of that’s done through your imagination. We want to make this practical. It’s not something that’s just like, oh, let’s think the best and and move on through our lives, but rather let’s think what God thinks and let’s apply that into our everyday life. Just like Sean was saying that we do create new neuropathways. The more we think in ways of gratitude, the more we think in ways of honor and mercy and justice and love. Those are key components
of what it means to imagine the world as you want it and as you can impact it. You know, it’s cool. Lee Lee’s my middle name by the way, is that we can actually change our physiology through what we think about. Have you ever had anything happen to you really quick and you start to experience stress. I know this weekend I dropped my son off to put our name in and I showed up about 10 minutes later after parking the car and uh, he just got ignored and he’s like, Dad, I told him three times and they just ignore me because I’m a kid. Adults kept cutting in front of me. And so immediately I got stressed out and then thank God for grace because I had a linear conversation in my mind of what my son needs to see the most of what looks most like Christ when I was able to use it.
But my physiology change and I got in like this posture of how dare you overlook my son. And I think that’s the dark side of what it could happen. But the positive side is I was able to get to a place of, you know, we can use this adversity to press through to talk about what it’s like to be on her, to be disregarded, how to ask for what we need, how to ask for, and solicit help from adults around us to not let the fear of what people think shut us up and keep us quiet. And so being aware of your physiology and your imagination can really impact the way that you live. And you know, we all bring a certain spirit with us. Some people call it energy, but, but there really is a felt sense of the person that you’re around. And if I’m living in a dark place and I allow my imagination, they can stay dark. Well, I’m going to bring darkness because I’m opening doors for the devil to go in and out constantly, constantly here and there. And I think if we open the door to God and we constantly allows love to filter in a flow through and hit us, well then we’re going to be these Bassians of hope. You know, that reminds me of a word – marriage counselor Edmond. We were at the sea aquarium this weekend and it’s called bio luminescence. Now, Heather, what does that mean?
Does anybody know? My Luma? I’m in the common word by aluminum. I can’t. These guys are all highly educated individuals. Okay, that’s really good. Somebody new, somebody new. So bio luminescence is, is typically creatures of the dark deep sea have this ability to create their own light. And one of the ways that God gave us married to do that is, is Christ in our imagination of in a dark situation or a place that we may or may not have a way that we can foresee getting out of. We had this bio luminescent ability that through our imagination that we could see what God can do because even if it’s not in that contained environment where you have any eternity and a hope and a promise because we as Christians know how this all ends. That’s right. So bio luminescence and your imagination, there’s something there. I hadn’t, she was about to say. So what do you think Katie? Katie’s over there. She’s a silent but wise one.
Well, I was just thinking about, um, with imagination, how imagination and faith go hand in hand and when we’re, when we’re walking in faith, it takes an element of imagination and beliefs, right? And what is it, the scene. And so if we’re, but I think Christians are so prone to worry and that just um, just doesn’t reflect belief or faith or none.
Just to give you an example in my life where that has happened is I’ve actually, my wife was late for um, she say she’s going to be homeless for a time. We lived in Denver, Colorado and there was a snow storm that was coming in and she was five minutes late and I went from, she’s late to the next thought. Oh, what if something happened to her? I mean, hearing an ambulance, what if, what if she’s hurt? What if she’s dead? How am I going to take care of the kids? What Ha, what am I going to do with my gear and get remarried? And I did that within five minutes and I felt angry. I felt a rush of adrenaline goes through my heart and I said, this is crazy. I like to call that vain imagination. And I put a stop to that too, to reorient my mind into heavily imagination where I’m thinking of what God is doing to take care of my wife. That’s good.
What do you think about all this, Heather?
I love it. I, uh, yeah, there was so I thought that came to my mind whenever you were talking about your son, um, was looked over a line and your reaction was how dare them ignore my son. I Dunno why, but I had this vision of God saying not about Jesus to us. How dare you ignore my son. Um, and then extending his grace on us, um, instead of wrath. And, uh, so I think that you display that very well. Um, yeah, even, you know, probably just play it for your son in the moment of, um, you know, frustration and anger, but then extending grace.
No, it was not easy. Trust me, as a marriage counselor Edmond I had a lot of thoughts going through my mind. How does it actually hitting the side? Um, because we actually got, we got seated and I held the door for like this group of like six people and they went in front of us and they got seated before us and then we’re sitting down and these other people came in and they, everybody got seated before us and I said, buddy, how do you want to handle this? Because I’m confident that I can get our whole meal written off if I want him to. I said, I, I just am, you know, because of how this has been handled. And they, they never apologize. They just kept dismissing me and we decided to show them grace. And so, and I thought about that even this morning when I was getting ready for work.
I thought about that situation cause it parlays back to my childhood and feeling looked over and so it has a deep connection and I started experiencing my physiology changing. I started to get stressed, this is like six 30 and I started to get stressed and like, wow. So I could have gotten my meal written off. They could have paid for my, but at what price they would have subtracted even more from our time at my time with my son. It would have exactly the price on my body and how I’ve experienced the joy that we entered the place with over 20 bucks or 30, however much it was. I would have lost that because of my choice. I was right, but I, I stopped that because my imagination started to go and I said, I really, I do this a lot. I just say I forgive, I forgive, I forgive, I forgive. And so I’m just rewiring that in because I don’t want to hold anything. Life can be heavy enough without carrying these, these weights in our imaginations. And then I, I just let go and I moved on and got ready and I am going back to that how Jesus and God interact and get their grace to us. You know, I think that got oftentimes gives that choice to choose us of, um, you know, how to handle different situations while Jesus was here with us. And I think a lot of times, you know, there was instances where Jesus said, forgive them father they and not what they’re doing. And you know, I can see Hayden saying that to you know, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. It’s really good.
Yeah. And uh, we all have these situations, right? Mary, marriage counselor Edmond, we all have situations where we find ourselves and our imagination just because of whatever event thought triggers it. We, we, we a lot of times had become by standards in our own imaginations, but, but really we have the ability, through God’s word and through practical steps to sit, to take every thought captive, to make it serve God and not give audience to that which is not from him. And Look, God doesn’t condemn us. God doesn’t shame us. God is a good, good father and he is all about loving. Now he will discipline us for sure because any good father or mother is going to discipline their kids. Yes, because they love him, right? But, but the thoughts that bring us down, the thoughts that are dark, that are cutting about self, about others are never from God.
And what we’re learning is that our imagination was a gift that when it serves our imagination serves the Lord. What a blessing. I mean, what a blessing we can. You know, I don’t know how you guys practice, but one of the techniques I use is we go back through past experiences and we rewire their experiencing of the past and there’s a lot of different techniques, whether it’s Emdr, whether it’s a brain spot. There’s a lot of different ways to do that, but my belief and understanding of the word is that God is so good that he lives outside of eternity, that he could have let us help us to have a good experience on the back end because he’s outside and he can jump into the time continuum where we live because we’re limited by the time he’s not and he can love us and walked us through that and let our body, our mind and our spirit release whatever trauma or experience we had and we’re holding onto that are hurting us or others.
Amen. Amen. Love it. Hey next week, Heather, who is the mastermind of all things children is going to do an amazing job as a marriage counselor Edmond. Do you know what you’re talking about yet? Maybe surprise, she is a surprise and kind of a person, so she’d probably spend about 12 to 20 hours praying about it and then we’ll know exactly what it will be probably sometime soon, right? Yeah. Well guys, thank you for tuning in. We’re going to be, or every Wednesday or Tuesday at two at 1230 and we love to hear where you’re from. We love to get to know you and tell your friends about it because we want to add value to your life. We’ve got training and counseling and we have a a life of service to people that were around and if you ever need us to partner with you. Um, a lot of us do phone counseling too, so no matter where you’re from, call in. We have a team of therapists that would love to serve and partner with you. You can go to New vision.org or New Vision counseling.org on the website. If you want to make an appointment or reach out to us. If you want to follow some Facebook, you’re already here, New Vision counseling, or you can also go to [inaudible] dot net God bless and we looked forward to seeing you guys again really soon. Take care of them.