DAN HEAVENOR. Friendship with Jesus: An Imaginative Prayer Journey. Wipf and Stock, 2024. $US 21.
It’s always a fascinating exercise to reflect on the first moments of an intimate friendship, the first interactions you may have had or the first time you met. My friendship with Heather began in the most roundabout way. A friend of mine had met her first and kept saying, “You have got to meet Heather! I feel like you two would get along so well.” I believe that we became “friends” on Facebook before we actually met in real life.
And that’s where things got interesting. One day, my friend Heather posted a picture on her Facebook page of her living room fan, bemoaning the fact that it needed to be dusted but that she was exhausted and on bedrest because of a particularly challenging pregnancy. I lived a few blocks away and thought, “Well, I can’t do much, but I can certainly clean off fan blades!” And so I did. I walked to her house, knocked on the door, and cleaned her living room fan. What a strange way for a friendship to begin!
But it wasn’t as though we just suddenly became close friends. Our friendship developed gradually over time. Another clear memory of our early friendship was one where I was outside jogging past her house and she called out from her porch, “Hey, would you like some Oreos?” as I went by. We still laugh about that one. Over time, our sons became friends and we began to spend more and more time together. Weeks turned into months, silly interactions turned into meaningful conversations, life experiences both good and bad happened to each of us, and our friendship became solidified in a common faith, common experiences, and common desire to see the other succeed.
Dan Heavenor’s book, Friendship with Jesus: An Imaginative Prayer Journey, approaches a growing relationship with Jesus in much the same way, with prayer and imagination as the vehicle upon which these ever-increasing interactions grow in both intimacy and fullness.
There are two key elements to fully embracing Heavenor’s book that one must be willing to bring to the table if the book is to fulfill its intended purpose and impact the reader in meaningful ways: Time and Imagination. Beginning with time, Heavenor unfolds this imaginative prayer journey with a recollection of an actual journey to Australia that he embarked on with a friend. He notes that, even though these two friends were very excited to begin their journey, they did not allow the time needed to adequately prepare both in mind and in body. Consequently, their journey faced some hardships and pain that they could have otherwise avoided.
In much the same way, this book and the journey that we are invited to take on takes time. This is not a “sit down and read in one sitting” type of a book. Rather it is a “read, take a moment, consider, read again, and ponder” type of a book. I mean, you could read it in one sitting—it is neither difficult to read or lengthy in its entirety—but in doing so, you would miss the beautiful nuance of growing a friendship with Jesus. At the end of each chapter and even sometimes in the middle of a chapter, Heavenor offers a practice or meditation, that, if the reader chooses to interact with, it will take a considerable amount of time. Thus, the book is less of a read-through than an interact-with type of book. It needs time in order to be properly engaged.
The second necessary element is imagination. Theologian and author G. K. Chesterton says, “Imagination is a thing of clear images, and the more a thing becomes vague the less imaginative it is.” Heavenor takes this to heart and invites us, the readers, to stir the embers of our dormant imagination and bring it into the biblical narrative, specifically the texts about and around Jesus; to erase our vague and misty understanding of who Jesus is and how Jesus lived and loved, and instead, by use of our imagination, to place ourselves in the story, interact directly with the narrative, and, most importantly, be with Jesus.
As someone who has studied spiritual formation and children’s ministry and spent a great deal of time in both places of quiet contemplation and imaginative play, I didn’t find it difficult to bring my imagination to this book. However, my suspicion is for those less inclined to regular use of their imagination especially within the context of prayer, this book may indeed be more of a journey that it might be for others.
A willingness to engage with and use one’s imagination will play a crucial role in experiencing this book. If that is something the reader struggles with, this book could pose some difficulty in reading. I would say, based on my own personal experience, if someone would like to read this book and truly experience the journey being offered, it might be helpful to have someone else read aloud the imaginative prayer experiences Heavenor offers. Then the hearer could engage with these experiences in a auditory setting rather than visual, allowing the imagination to have a bit more space to grow than reading words might allow.
Just like any friendship journey, there will be times of discovery and times of discomfort. In the second half of the book, Heavenor helps the reader to engage with the life, death, and resurrection of Christ in deeply personal and formative ways. This is why the first two elements are so crucial; taking the time to learn how to imaginatively pray and moving along this journey in a timely and preparatory fashion will allow the introduction of more difficult topics such as suffering, death, and sorrow to be properly, not painfully, engaged.
Heavenor concludes the book with these poignant thoughts: “I hope that your imagination has been given space to breathe, and you have found yourself falling in love with Jesus. For living with Jesus will draw us into a life of continually receiving love and giving love. Love compels us to turn and pay attention to Jesus. Love energizes us to follow him. Love enables us to trust him and surrender to him. To follow Jesus is to live a life of love.”
I cannot think of a friendship more worth pursuing than a friendship with Jesus. This book offers a way to do that, a way that requires us to slow down, take time, and use our God-given imaginations to meet or re-meet our Savior. Do not enter this journey lightly. If engaged wholeheartedly, your life may very well never be the same. You will make a Friend for life, indeed, life eternal.