A Personal Check Up (Pt.2)

The first question is:

 

1. How is your vision?

 

Bill Hybels defines vision as "a picture of a preferred future that produces passion.” Nothing much happens without vision. However, when someone gets a vision … something powerful begins to happen and significant movement takes place. Just study history. Whether it be William Wilberforce, the Wright brothers, Henry Ford, Billy Graham, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Jesus Christ himself, people who do significant things in life all have this thing called vision.

 

What about you? Do you have a vision? Do you have a dream? Do you have a cause that you’re living for and working towards? What’s your vision?

 

The writer of the book of Proverbs says this ... "Where there is no vision, the people perish (KJV)." The Message Bible puts it this way ... "If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves."

  

Even when we have a clear vision, we need to protect it. Why? Because vision leaks and mission drifts. We all easily get off course, or we lose focus as to what life is all about, especially in the busyness and the challenges of daily life.

What do you see God doing through your efforts?

• Is it a picture of you helping lonely people find friendship and community?
• Is it a picture of you using your artistic ability as a tool for God to touch a heart and change a life?
• Is it a picture of you giving help and loving support to a hurting needy person in the local community during their time of need?
• Is it a picture of you helping people far from God coming to faith?
• Is it a picture of you living a life of effective service for others?
• Is it a picture of you helping to organise things with excellence so that people are able to be ministered to in an ideal environment, free from distraction? 

Prayerfully, find your picture and focus on it. Blow it up – make it larger! Paint it in technicolour and maybe even 3D! But what ever you do, see it! Then tell others about it, then work towards it becoming a reality.

 

Where does vision come from? Well, we can come up with our own vision OR we can take time to see God’s vision – for the world, for the church, for our life, and for our ministry. Catching a glimpse of God’s vision takes time and effort. However, when we turn aside to see what God wants to do, he will show us his plans and purposes (see Habakkuk 2:1-3).

 

How is your vision? Is your vision clear or fuzzy? If it’s a bit unclear, spend some time in prayer, reading God’s Word, looking at other effective people, reading stories of great vision, etc.