I am an extremely visual person, and the other day we did this exercise as a team and I want to share it on the blog. I want to share the exercise as we did it, and I encourage you as you read this to take the time to do the exercise as you read this blog. We are going to go on an adventure. This is your adventure and you can use your imagination as much as you want. The more color and detail you provide, the better the exercise will be for you. Write down your answers as you go, after the 11 questions I will loop back around and talk about what each question represents. We had somebody reading the questions to us, so if you want to I encourage you to grab a friend to read these to you and keep your eyes closed as you go through this journey.
This exercise is not a perfect way to gauge things in your daily life or spiritual life. The questions are meant to creatively challenge you to open up to things that might be deeper than your everyday thoughts. This is meant to push you to seek God for answers to questions that arise from this activity.
First, I pray that you are in a space that allows you to quiet your mind, and open your heart to what the Lord has for you. I know that if you allow him to walk you through this journey He will speak to you in great ways.
Let’s begin. Clear your mind, and begin to allow yourself to explore your imagination.
1. You are standing in the woods. Is it day or night? What do you see around you? Are there animals? Are there any noises or activity going on around you? Do you see any signs that tell you where you are going? How do you feel as you walk through the woods? What do you say to yourself?
2. There is a clearing in the woods and you come across a house. Describe the OUTSIDE of the house. What does the outside look like? Is it old or new? What colors do you see? How do you feel as you approach the house?
3. As you approach the house, you decide to go INSIDE of the house. What does the inside look like? What is the condition of the house? Is it clean, dirty, dusty, unkept? What colors do you see? Are there any pictures? Is anyone inside of the house? If so, what are they doing? Do they say anything to you? If there is no one in the house, whose house do you think it is? How do you feel?
4. You see a staircase. Do you go upstairs, downstairs or stay where you are? Whichever direction you move there is a note left waiting for you. What does it say? How do you feel as you read it?
5. You decide to leave the house and walk out the back door. You see a path in front of you. You decide to walk down the path. Describe the path. What does it look like? Are there any signs? Where do you think the path leads? How do you feel as you walk down the path?
6. As you are walking down the path, you come across a CUP sitting upright on the side of the road. What kind of cup is it? Is it valuable? What is the condition of cup? What color is the cup? What is inside of the cup? How do you feel?
7. You continue walking down the path and you see a BODY of WATER in the distance. You decide to check it out. Is it a lake, river, ocean, puddle, creek or waterfall? What color is the water? In order to continue your journey you must continue down the path on the other side. How do you get across? Swim? Walk around? Wait? Sit?
8. Out of the corner of your eyes you spot a KEY, on the path. What kind of key is it? Is it important to you and what does it look like? How do you feel about the key? What do you say to yourself? Do you take it with you?
9. You continue walking down the path and you suddenly you see a threatening ANIMAL. What kind of animal is it. Is it male or female? What size is it? What is the animal doing? You have to get past the animal. How do you get past the animal and what do you do to get past it? Describe what happens. Does the animal hurt you? How do you feel and what do you think to yourself?
10. After the situation with the animal, you continue down the path. You come to a huge WALL and the path suddenly ends. There seems to be no way to continue so you’re journey has ended. What does the wall look like, is there something written on it? What material is it made of? What do you feel and think?
11. You hear a voice that tells you there is a way to get to the other side of the path BEYOND THE WALL. Do you recognize the voice? If so, who is it? How do you get to the other side? What is waiting for you when you finally get beyond the wall? Describe the scene once you make it. Who is waiting for you and what do they say? How do you feel? What do you say to yourself?
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Now that you have completed your journey, we’ll go through what each question means. Look at where you were on your journey, and ask the Lord what it represents for you specifically. Each scene might be pointing to one specific area in your life, not how you view your entire life. Example: the woods might represent a season you are currently walking through, not your continual outlook on life.
1. The forest represents HOW you feel about your life.
2. The outside of the house represents HOW others feel when they approach or meet you.
3. The inside of the house represents how you really feel about yourself.
4. The stairs represent your mindset on life, up=positive, down=negative. If you don’t want to go up or down, you might be afraid to go deeper with people or life. The note is a word from God.
5. The path out the backdoor represents how you feel about your future.
6. The cup represents how you feel and treat others, the quality of friendships in your mind.
7. The body of water represents your emotional health, your ability to handle the emotions in front of you. The type of water says a lot about how you see emotions, deep, shallow, rushing? If you walk around the water, you tend to avoid emotions, if you walk through it, you deal with your emotions head on. Depending on how deep the water is while you go through depends on how deep you go with your emotions.
8. The key represents how you receive wisdom, your desire to better understand challenging and deeper things. If you take it, you value wisdom.
9. The animal represents how you handle relationship problems (not your overall relationship) with your parents. Female = mother issues, male = father issues
10. This wall represents HOW you confront changes.
11. The last step represents RESOLUTION and RESTORATION in your spiritual walk.
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Here is the journey that I went through, but if you would like chat with me (comment/email/message) about the journey that you went on! I would love to hear how this went for you, I for one, LOVE exercises like these!
My forest was at dawn, there is not path, the trees are similar to what you would find in the Oregon woods, a deer sees me, but she does not run away. I feel peaceful, relaxed. The wind blows through the trees resulting the leaves as light shines through.
I took this to be a representation of where I am at now. Over the last few weeks I have continually received the word at dawn for my leaf, meaning I am at the start of something great.
2. The house I saw was a little log cabin with a light in the window, it’s well kept, but clearly it has been there for a while. There is a porch with a brown mat, I feel at peace still, curious what the house contains – do I know the residence? why am I here? There is a friendly adventure pup on the porch!
Hopefully others do see me as well kept, friendly and adventurous when they meet me!
3. The inside of the house was also very well kept, with black leather furniture (which is my favorite). There are pictures of nature – probably my photography – but no pictures of people. Grammy (my Grandmother from my Mom’s side who passed away 5 years ago) is cooking. She just says “welcome.” I feel slightly uneasy that it’s Grammy in the house, but so excited to talk to her! Papa (Grandfather who passed away 2 years ago) lives here too, I don’t see him, but his boots are by the door, and his black jacket is hanging above them. The fireplace is lit. “Do you want coffee? We don’t have none of that fancy stuff!” Grammy calls.
I think this represents that I see myself as a well kept, coffee addict who’s had too many fancy lattes!
4. I went upstairs, and there was a letter on the table at the top of the stairs that said –
“Mikayla,
We are oh so very proud of you. You have grown so much in 5 years. Look at who you’ve become! We are so excited for the next 5 years! Do you know how good it will be? Lead our family well. Take the love freely given to you and pour it out lavishly to those around you. Pray fervently, and chase the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul.
-Grammy and Papa”
This is a pretty self explanatory word from the Lord, but as I wrote it I really did not feel as if I was the one writing it, and I got goosebumps when we talked about how it was a note from the Lord.
5. As I left the house I walked down a dirt path, there are no signs, but I feel confident in where I am going. It probably leads back to a parking lot – or my parent’s cabin (I kept thinking maybe Nashville but thought that was weird and didn’t write it down). The pup is with me, I am happy to have a friend with me.
I took this to mean I am totes ma goats getting Keda, SOOOOON. But also that the plans I have for the future will be blessed by the Lord and that I am on the write path. The current plan is to move to Nashville so hopefully September 2018 I’ll be moving to Tennessee!
6. I saw a red solo cup, that specifically was in “pristine condition”
I’m not exactly sure what that would mean for how I see my friends, but I like the thought of “pristine condition”.
7. The body of water that I saw was a clear small lake / large pond (depending on how you classify things) with a waterfall on the right. It’s deep so I dive in and swim over to the waterfall, enjoying the refreshing water and then swim over to the path where Keda is standing – he walked around.
This would represent that I embrace emotions, and dive into them – I may even be refreshed by an overflow of emotion. I may have a slightly unhealthy emotional dog though!
8. I saw a gold metal skeleton key – Keda actually pointed it out, but it felt important so I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I don’t know what it is for though.
To represent wisdom, taking the key means that I value wisdom – which is true.
9. I saw a large female bear (sorry Mom). I see it from a distance, so I start yelling and she looks up, sees the dog and me, and looks over to her cub, and then scampers off when we get closer. I am afraid for Keda, but I feel safe.
This would mean I am more likely to have issues with my Mom, but I think we handle the problem before it really arrises. Like with a bear in the wild, if you make noises chances are they will hear you and run away instead of being quiet you startle them and they feel threatened and attack. I don’t fight with anybody often, definitely not my parents, but I think as a habit I try to fix things before they become a major issue.
10. I came upon a stone wall, that wasn’t too big to climb over, but the narrator we had said it was too high and I had to wait here. So I sat down, leaned against the wall and spent time with Keda. I am tired but happy as I remember the adventure I just had.
I took this to mean that when I handle change I take time to enjoy what I had before moving on, which based on recent experience I would say true.
11. Jesus calls over the wall “climb over”. I picked up Keda and set him on top of the wall, Jesus pulled him over. I then climbed over and stood with Jesus and Keda on a path that looks like a path He and I have been on before. This whole Race my quiet times have consisted of this journey from a meadow where we started, to a ridge that He pointed to. We are somewhere between the meadow and the ridge, but the path I stand on now looks like where we’ve been for about a month. Jesus throws a stick to lead Keda down the path, wraps his arm around me and as we start walking asks “Are you ready?”.
This is definitely how I have found resolution and restoration in my spiritual journey this year, and it has been so fun to go on a quite literal spiritual journey during this great physical journey.
Again, this is not a perfect way to judge where you are, but I really enjoyed this exercise! Let me know what you took from it / where you are at with the Lord!
