What's your 'vision?'

Do you ever feel like this: "Another day, slogging through the 'stuff' of life, what's the use of it all?" Or when your dreams seem more like mirages, out there, just beyond your reach; are you tempted to just quit trying and settle for what it, rather than attempting what could be? Vision can be a hard taskmaster, pushing us through the days when we just want to exist, not to achieve!

Our sense of the vanity of life becomes overwhelming if we are caught up only in "just making a living." A real vision gives 'big picture context' to the work of the day. Let me illustrate from my life. On Friday my primary task is to complete the sermon that I will deliver to the congregation on Sunday morning. I can choose to view that task in two very different lights. I can see it as 'just getting something to say because that's what is expected of me.' If I take that view, I'll feel that what I'm doing is meaningless! However when I remember the work of preparing a message for the people I serve is a God-given opportunity to nudge the flock in this church a little way along the road to eternal life, I regain 'vision' that makes the work worthy of the effort required.

A person who plants tree seedlings has to have vision! Trees do not grow quickly. That little sapling that a person plants in the back yard, won't be a shade tree to sit under for years and years! By contrast, a person who plants annual flowers need little vision. The tiny plants will grow quickly, in a matter of a couple of weeks, into flowering gardens. But, they will die in a matter of months, too!

Our God calls us to active pursuit of the good He has purposed to do through us -- patiently and persistently. James uses the work of a farmer to illustrate the way to resist the deception of the day. "Wait patiently for the Master's Arrival. You see farmers do this all the time, waiting for their valuable crops to mature, patiently letting the rain do its slow but sure work. Be patient like that. Stay steady and strong. The Master could arrive at any time." (James 5:7-8, The Message) Regain your vision. Remind yourself why you started down this road. Pray that God will set this day into the context of the larger picture of life for you, then - push ahead, steadily.

Andy Stanley writes, "The daily grind of life is hard on visions. Life is now. Bills are now. Crisis is now. Vision is later. It is easy, therefore, to lose sight of the main thing, to sacrifice the best for the good. All of us run the risk of allowing secondary issues to rob us of the joy of seeing our visions come to completion. Distractions slowly kill the vision." (Visioneering, Multnomah, 1999)

Take a few moments right now to re-focus and to set the tasks that await you into a larger context of vision.

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Sometimes in the heat of day
when I close my eyes to pray,
it seems like you are far from me.
My prayers are all in vain,
In my hour of hopelessness,
in my deep despair,
the noonday devil whispers in my ear!

I know that you are with me,
But I can't feel a thing,
the noonday devil has come around again.

Father, you have called me
to live a life that's true,
that all my labors and my works would
speak my love for you,
but walking through this desert,
life is empty and mundane,
the noonday devil has come around again.

Oh Lord, make me angry!
Oh Lord, make me cry!
Oh Lord, please don't leave me here
to fall into the devil's lies!

Fernando Ortega - "Noonday Devil."
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