Imagination and faith go hand in hand. Learn practical ways to nurture godly imagination this Christmas season.
Why Imagination Matters for Your Child's Faith
Picture this: A wooden spoon becomes a sword. A cardboard box transforms into a castle. A backyard morphs into an enchanted forest where anything is possible. If you have children, you've witnessed the astonishing power of imagination—that God-given ability to see beyond what is and envision what could be.
During the Christmas season, we encounter one of the most imaginative stories ever told: The Nutcracker. Clara receives a wooden nutcracker as a gift, and in her dreams (or perhaps in reality—the story leaves it beautifully ambiguous), he comes to life. Together they battle the Mouse King, journey through the Land of Snow, and arrive in the Kingdom of Sweets, where everything is magical and beautiful. It's a story that has captivated audiences for over a century, not despite its fantastical elements, but because of them.
Here's a question some Christian parents wrestle with: Is encouraging imagination compatible with teaching truth? Should we foster fantasy when we want our children to be grounded in reality?
The answer is a resounding yes—and the reason runs deeper than you might think.
Made in the Image of a Creative God
Open your Bible to the very first verse: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." Before anything else is revealed about God's character, we learn this: He creates. He imagines. He speaks things into existence that never were before.
When God made humanity in His image, He didn't just stamp us with moral capacity or rational minds. He breathed into us the ability to create, to imagine, to see beauty and bring new things into being. Every time your child builds a blanket fort or invents a new game, they're reflecting something profound about their Maker.
Spiritual imagination isn't a distraction from faith; it's often the doorway to deeper faith. Before we can believe in a God we cannot see, we must be able to imagine beyond the merely visible.
C.S. Lewis, who gave us The Chronicles of Narnia series, understood this beautifully. He wrote, "I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? ... But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency?"
Why Imagination Is Essential for Children
Imagination isn’t just about entertainment; it's fundamental to how children learn, grow, and understand their world. Imagination is important for children in a lot of different ways:
- Cognitively, imagination builds problem-solving skills. When your five-year-old turns a blanket into a superhero cape, they're learning to think flexibly and see multiple solutions to challenges. Emotionally, imaginative play helps children process complex feelings in safe ways. That dragon they're battling? It might represent a fear they're working through. That princess they're rescuing? Perhaps they're exploring what it means to be brave or kind.
- Socially, imagination teaches empathy. When children pretend to be someone else—a doctor, a teacher, a character from a story—they practice seeing the world from another person's perspective. This is the foundation of compassion and understanding.
- Spiritually, imagination encourages not only dreaming and belief in the miraculous but also child-like faith. When Jesus said, "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3), He wasn't calling us to be childish—He was calling us to trust with the wholehearted openness that comes naturally to children. What does child-like faith look like? It's believing without needing to fully understand. It's trusting someone completely because you know they love you. It's accepting wonder and mystery without demanding proof for everything. And it requires spiritual imagination: the ability to picture what we cannot see, to believe in realities beyond the physical, and to have hope in and dream of things yet to come.
Children with rich imaginative lives are better equipped to embrace the mysteries of faith with the kind of trust Jesus commended. They've practiced believing in things they can't touch. They've learned to see beyond the surface of the ordinary world. They've developed the spiritual imagination that lets them dream of God's kingdom breaking into reality.
The Nutcracker and the Power of Wonder
What makes The Nutcracker endure isn't just the Tchaikovsky score (though it helps). It's that the story invites us into wonder, that wide-eyed awe at beauty and possibility that is so natural to children and so easily lost by adults.
In the story, ordinary objects become extraordinary:
- A nutcracker becomes a prince.
- A Christmas tree grows impossibly tall.
- Sugar Plum Fairies dance, and snowflakes come alive.
This capacity for wonder is essential to the child-like faith Jesus described. When we read that "the heavens declare the glory of God" (Psalm 19:1), we're being invited to see beyond hydrogen and helium, beyond physics and chemistry, to glimpse the Artist behind creation. When we celebrate that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), we're embracing a reality more fantastical than any fairy tale—God gave us His only son, and he came not as a king or riding a chariot down from heaven but humbly as a baby in a manger.
Imagination and Truth Aren't Enemies
Some parents worry that fantasy will confuse children about what's real. "If I let them believe in magic in stories, won't they struggle to understand what's true about God?"
But children are remarkably good at distinguishing between imaginative play and reality when we help them think clearly. You can read The Nutcracker together and then discuss: "This is a wonderful story, isn't it? The author used his imagination to create something beautiful. Now, some parts of our faith are like this story—they're hard to fully understand because they're so amazing. God really did become human. Jesus really did rise from the dead. Those things actually happened, and they're even more wonderful than any story someone could make up."
In fact, exposure to good imaginative stories can help children grasp spiritual truths that might otherwise seem abstract. The idea of transformation—so central to The Nutcracker—is also central to the gospel. We are changed from one thing into another, from slaves to sin into children of God, from death to life.
Practical Ways to Nurture Godly Imagination
Children naturally have amazing imaginative power. You can further encourage their imaginative side by doing the following:
- Read richly. Fill your home with stories that stretch the imagination while pointing to truth. Sonlighters have this covered, as you build impressive home libraries with every box day and know the power that stories have in encouraging your children’s curiosity.
- Create together. Set aside time for art, music, building, and making/creating. When children create, they're practicing seeing possibility and bringing something new into existence—imitating their Creator.
- Encourage dramatic play. Let them dress up, act out stories, and inhabit different characters. If you’re looking for ways to connect with history, this can be a great activity!
- Ask "What If" questions. "What if you could design any animal? What would it look like?" "What if you could invent a new instrument? What would it sound like?" These questions exercise imaginative muscles.
- Experience beauty. Take your children to see The Nutcracker ballet if possible, or watch a quality televised version together. Visit art museums. Listen to beautiful music. Let them experience creativity that took skill, effort, and imagination to produce.
- Connect imagination to scripture. When you read Bible stories, encourage children to imagine the scenes. "What do you think David felt when he faced Goliath? Can you imagine being in that dark valley with just a sling?" Help them see that these aren't just words on a page but real events that happened to real people. This kind of spiritual imagination brings Scripture to life and nurtures the trust and wonder Jesus described when He called us to become like little children.
The Christmas Gift of Creativity
This Christmas, as you think about Clara's journey through impossible lands with her Nutcracker prince, remember that you're not just entertaining your children. You're nurturing a gift God planted within them, the gift of imagination that allows them to dream, to create, to wonder, and ultimately, to have faith in a God whose reality exceeds anything we could ask or imagine.
The very story we celebrate at Christmas requires imagination: a virgin birth, angels announcing good news to shepherds, wise men following a star, God Himself wrapped in swaddling clothes. It's the most fantastical true story ever told.
So let your children imagine. Let them play. Let them create. In doing so, they're not escaping reality—they're learning to see it more clearly, through eyes that recognize the creativity of the One who imagined everything into being. They're developing the spiritual imagination and child-like trust that will serve them throughout their lives of faith.
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