Walking Boldly In the Presence of Christ as the Puritans
Let me introduce you to a practice that changed how I counsel people, how I pray, and honestly, how I get through hard days myself.
Before you click away, hear me out. Because what I am about to describe is not new age, not secular mindfulness, and not something I invented. It’s actually an ancient, deeply biblical practice. And it came from some of the most psychologically sophisticated spiritual guides in church history – The Puritans.
I know what just happened in your mind. You pictured stern people in black clothing, hard wooden pews, and sermons designed to make everyone feel terrible. That image exists, but it’s missing something enormous about who these people actually were and what they understood about the human soul.
The Puritans understood something about the mind that modern neuroscience is only now beginning to document with actual research. What you picture in your heart shapes what you actually believe. And what you believe shapes absolutely everything else about how you live.
Who the Puritans Actually Were
Richard Baxter wrote a book called The Saints’ Everlasting Rest that fills page after page with detailed, vivid pictures of eternal joy and God’s glory. He did not write it to be poetic. He wrote it because he understood that a believer who could see eternal realities in their mind’s eye would endure temporary suffering in a completely different way. He was giving his readers something real and specific to fix their eyes on when everything around them felt hopeless.
Jonathan Edwards is often remembered for his sermon called ‘Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God’, but it wasn’t the fear-provoking title that made it famous. It was his use of vivid imagery. He wanted to help people see, feel, and experience God after such a long period of spiritual numbness and overcomplacency with the concerns of this life. Edwards understood that when the imagination is shaped by biblical truth, it can help people grasp spiritual realities that are often ignored or forgotten. He recognized that truth reaches beyond the intellect alone when truth captures the imagination. It has the power to move the heart, deepen conviction, and encourage genuine transformation.
Thomas Watson, another Puritan pastor, said it this way. Meditation is like the shining sun. It operates upon the affections, it warms the heart and makes it more holy. Meditation fetches life in truth. He also said that as a hammer drives a nail to the head, meditation drives a truth to the heart.
These were not mystical dreamers. These were practical, Scripture-saturated pastors who understood that information does not automatically become transformation. Truth has to travel from the head into the bones. And holy imagination was one of the primary tools they used to make that journey happen.
They Drew a Clear Line, and It Matters
The Puritans were careful people, and they drew a very specific line that I want you to understand.
On one side of that line, there was vain imagination. This is a kind of self-centered imagination that ignores God and involves the sinful imagination Paul warned about in Romans 1:21. It leads the soul away from truth and toward whatever the flesh wants to pursue. The Puritans were absolutely opposed to that.
On the other side, holy imagination. This type of imagination is grounded in Scripture, fixed on God’s character, anchored in His promises, and strives to directly make eternal realities feel more real than the circumstances that close in on us from every direction.
Two types of imagination that will change everything! One is in a direction away from God, and the other is taking you closer to God.
Now I want to impress upon you that Holy imagination is not emptying your mind, nor is it detaching from reality. It is not anything resembling the practices of Eastern spirituality or New Age frameworks. It is the exact opposite. It is intentionally and specifically filling your mind with what God has already said is true.
Scripture Was Already Teaching This
Here is what I love most about this. The Puritans did not invent it. They built a practice around what Scripture was already teaching clearly.
Psalm 16:8 says I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With Him at my right hand I will not be shaken. David practiced something intentional here. He actively and deliberately fixed his gaze on God’s presence as a daily spiritual discipline. That is not passive. That is a choice made over and over again.
Hebrews 11:27 tells us Moses endured because he kept seeing the One who is invisible. That language is remarkable. Moses pressed forward through impossible circumstances, serving an impossible calling, by keeping his mind’s eye fixed on a God his physical eyes could not see. He used his imagination as an instrument of faith.
Colossians 3:1-2 instructs believers to set their minds on things above, where Christ sits enthroned. That word set implies intentional effort. Paul was not describing something that happens automatically or accidentally. He was describing a practice that requires deliberate daily choice.
Philippians 4:8, which tells us to fill our minds actively with what is true, noble, right, pure, and lovely.
These scriptures provide specific instruction about what we are to intentionally place in our minds. The Puritans simply built a concrete practice around what Scripture had already been saying all along.
What Modern Neuroscience Actually Confirms
Now, here is where I get a little excited, because I love it when science catches up with what God already told us.
Current neuroscience research shows that mental imagery activates many of the same brain circuits as actual perception and experience. When you vividly imagine something, your brain processes it in patterns that closely resemble real experience. Studies have even shown that mental rehearsal alone can be nearly as effective as physical practice in certain contexts. The brain begins to respond to what is consistently pictured, as though it carries real weight.
God designed the mind to be shaped by what it consistently focuses on. The Puritans understood this intuitively through Scripture and pastoral observation. Modern brain research is simply confirming what the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write two thousand years ago. Set your mind. Fix your gaze. Keep seeing the One who is invisible.
What you consistently picture shapes what you genuinely believe. What you genuinely believe shapes how you actually live.
How I Use This in Counseling
This is not an academic exercise for me. It’s real-life practice. This is something I personally do and something I teach my clients. I call it Holy Imagination, and it has changed sessions in ways I honestly cannot always explain other than to say the Holy Spirit meets people in it.
Here is a simple example. A woman I am working with is struggling with a fear of rejection. Every conversation, every room she walks into, every relationship feels like a performance she might fail. We talk about John 15:15, where Jesus says He calls us His friends. That is true intellectually. She knows it. But it has not moved into her yet.
So, I ask her to close her eyes and picture Jesus walking beside her into that room. Not as a concept. As a person. In the here and now – in the present tense. He is beside her. Looking at her with genuine affection and zero expectation of performance. When they can take these true statements in and embrace them a happening right in front of them, something shifts. The truth stops being information and starts becoming real in a different way.
That’s holy imagination doing what the Puritans designed it to do. Moving truth from the page into the place where it can actually change behavior.
Practical Ways to Build This Into Your Life
The Puritans were intensely practical people, and so am I. Here is how to actually apply this starting today.
In the morning, before you get out of bed, picture Jesus standing at your side. Not a vague presence. A specific person saying specifically what He promised in Matthew 28:20: “I am with you always.” Start the day with that image already in place before the demands of the day start pressing in.
During your work, visualize doing your tasks with Christ watching and genuinely delighting in your faithfulness. This transforms ordinary work into something that carries eternal weight rather than just filling hours.
When trials hit, and fear rises, picture Jesus holding your tears in His bottle. Psalm 56:8 says God collects every tear you cry. He sees every one of them. He keeps them. That image does something to the soul that a theological argument alone cannot quite reach.
In prayer, envision yourself entering the throne of grace and speaking directly to your Father. You are not sending words into a ceiling. You are entering a throne room where you have been welcomed fully and permanently.
At night, when anxiety rises and your mind will not settle, picture the Good Shepherd standing guard while you sleep. You can lie down because He does not.
Walking Bold When the World Pushes Back
The Puritans faced real opposition. Their faith cost them socially, professionally, and sometimes physically. Yet they walked with a courage that genuinely confounded the people around them. That courage did not come from personality type, willpower, or the right circumstances.
It came from keeping their imaginations fixed on eternal realities that outweighed every temporary pressure. They knew things that the people around them could not see. And they practiced seeing those things daily so that the reality of God’s presence stayed more vivid than the reality of their circumstances.
Three truths anchored them, and the same truths can anchor you.
Christ’s presence never wavers. Matthew 28:20 promises He stays with us always to the very end of the age. Romans 8:38 through 39 declares that nothing in all creation can separate us from His love. First Corinthians 15:57 announces that His victory already belongs to us before the battle even begins.
When those truths move from the page into the picture your mind holds throughout the day, something shifts in a real and measurable way. Shame shrinks because it cannot survive in the presence of genuine belonging. Fear loses its footing because perfect love casts it out. The approval of people stops carrying so much weight when you genuinely sense that you are never actually walking into any room alone.
This Is Not Childish, and It Is Not Optional
I want to close with something I say directly because I think it matters.
God gave us imagination for a reason. Filling our minds with what is true and noble and pure and lovely, as Philippians 4:8 instructs, is not a Sunday school suggestion. It is active warfare. The enemy knows the power of imagery. He has flooded our culture with images specifically designed to pull us toward fear, shame, lust, despair, and hopelessness. He is constantly using his imagination as a weapon against us.
The Puritans fought back with intentional, Scripture-rooted imagination that kept God’s presence vivid and Christ’s victory visible. They were not escapists. They were people who understood that the battle for the soul begins in the mind, and they refused to leave that territory uncontested.
We can do the same. Fixing the mind on what is already true about God’s presence does not make us less grounded in reality. It makes us more grounded in the only reality that will actually outlast this life.
Thomas Watson said meditation fetches life in truth. That is what holy imagination does. It takes the truth you already know and makes it alive in the place where you actually live, which is not just the intellect but the heart, the imagination, the daily experience of being a person walking through a hard world with a God who promised to never leave.
Start small. One image and truth every morning.
And let what is eternally real become more real to you than what is only temporarily loud.
ARE YOU READY?
At Are You Ready Counseling, holy imagination is one of the tools I use regularly with clients navigating anxiety, shame, fear, trauma, and spiritual struggle. If you are ready to move truth from your head into your bones, I would love to walk alongside you in that process. Reach out when you are ready.
Jane Perkins, MS, LCPC
Are You Ready Counseling
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