Is daydreaming dangerous?

When I was a little girl I used to daydream a LOT. I had friends, but I preferred to play by myself. I was always inventing games and performing for my dolls, I even had my own secret club, ala Calvin & Hobbes. As I grew older and began to like boys, my daydreams changed. Mostly about my fabulous wedding and future husband, Backstreet Boy Nick Carter. I used to run around the house singing all the favorite mid-90’s pop hits, pretending I was the 6th Spice Girl. (See, it’s a remarkable thing to find I’ve grown so that I can talk about this without being embarrassed, LOL!)  I’d draw my dream underground house (apparently underground was the ultimate place to live??) and  I used to write all kinds of stories and plays, too. They would usually feature a more desirable me as the heroine who overcomes the plots of the evil Dad of the Bedtime.

It may have been cute as a kid, but as I let it leak into high school and college, that imagination turned more and more inward, until I became stuck in my own self-imposed thinking. It’s not hard to see that imagination left unbridled can affect how I think about myself, others, and God. Even if the content of a daydream isn’t sinful, the thoughts I think about it may be. 2 Corinthians 10:5 says that we must take every thought captive before Jesus. I may daydream about becoming an enormously successful writer but if that leads to prideful thinking about myself (which is both sinful and false!) then that is not God-honoring.

Even if you may not relate in this way, my dear reader, we all have thought lives of which we are to take good care. Choose one of the following verses to meditate upon today. Many write it on a Post-it and stick it on your computer or dashboard, and ask God for the grace to turn over your whole mind to Him.

Matthew 15:16-20

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.

Eccesiastes 5:7

Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God.

Phil 4:8

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

2 Peter 1:3

 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

James 2:10

For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.

Thank you, Jesus, for the freedom to choose life-giving thoughts! We know that we deserve nothing, but that we have been given EVERYTHING through your precious blood.