A new word has crept into my vocabulary. And it’s totally freaked me out.

Manifestation.

More than once, I’ve found myself encouraging someone to manifest their dreams. Named the word of 2024 by the Cambridge Dictionary, it’s currently trending on TikTok with 230 million+ posts. Have I become embroiled in a New Age cult? Absolutely not. But because manifesting is everywhere, it’s entering everyday conversations – and to my surprise, it’s already entered my conversations.

But what exactly is manifestation? A quick Google search got me up to speed. Proponents argue it’s visualising hopes and ambitions, speaking them out loud, and taking active steps to turn them into reality. In the words of Gabrielle Bernstein, it’s ‘co-creating, a collaboration between you and the universe’.*

This desire to co-create is an essential facet of our humanity. No wonder our colleagues, friends, and family members want to be co-creators, too.

Co-creation is a way in which we image God and fulfil his creation mandate (Genesis 1:27–28). Under his sovereignty and within the bounds of creation, we’re called to be his hands and feet, making objects, cultures, and communities suffused with his shalom (Ephesians 2:10). That might look like composing beautiful music, refusing to overbill clients, calling out sexist comments, paying employees living wage, leading with radical humility, or laying bricks with perfect precision.

We’re living in a culture that’s increasingly open to the spiritual realm and disillusioned with this broken world. The Bible is abundantly clear that we’re not to turn to mediums (Leviticus 19:31), and that acting as if we can be like God without God has destructive consequences (Genesis 3:1–7). But that doesn’t mean we should avoid conversations about spiritualist practices that, however confused, resonate with who God made us to be.

So, carefully listen to and engage with the supernatural yearnings of those around you. When a friend tells you they manifested physical healing, share that you prayed to the God who gave sight to the blind and made a lame man walk – and you believe this miraculous healing was, in fact, a gift from him.

Tell them that, whilst Jesus doesn’t promise health, through his resurrection we have certain hope that all things will be perfectly restored. And what’s more, empowered by his Spirit, we have the privilege of bringing glimpses of this perfect harmony into the present. Then invite them to co-create this beautiful future – not through abstract powers but with the God of all things.

Sophie Sanders
Sophie is Marketing & Comms Lead at LICC and regularly writes on relationships.

*Gabrielle Bernstein, Super Attractor: Methods for Manifesting a Life Beyond Your Wildest Dreams (Hay House, 2019), xii.