“Where there is no vision, the people perish”
------Proverbs 29:18
Once you realize your God-given purpose, you should start to have a vision. A vision is the first step toward turning your motivation into inspiration. I‘m not talking about what the American Indians call a “vision quest.” What I mean by vision is a mental picture of what you will be doing to fulfill your purpose. A person with a vision sees down the road. He can sense what it will be like six weeks, six months, a year, two years, five years, ten years and more ahead.
So how do you get a vision? Call to mind your purpose and try to imagine a way or a few possible ways in which this purpose can be fulfilled. To refer once more to my novel, if you read it, I‘m sure you can recall Pilate‘s wife, Portia‘s constant insistence that he could take over Herod‘s territory. That was because, having sensed her husband‘s purpose, to rule, she got a vision of the extension of that rule and then went to work to achieve it by first by trying to get her husband to have the same vision and then by writing letters to Caesar. Of course, that plan eventually failed but it was probably because she was unable to keep it at the forefront of her husband‘s mind for long enough. John the Baptist, a minor character in my novel, was told his purpose from birth (to prepare the way of the Messiah) and he kept the vision until he was thrown into prison by Herod. Then he sent his followers to ask Jesus if he was really the one. Examples of people from real life who did fulfill their vision are Thomas Edison, who after over 1,000 tries, did manage to create the light bulb, and col. Sanders, who after 1001 rejections of his secret recipe, finally sold it and started the chain of restaurants we have to today. Just how these two examples tied the vision to purpose, I‘m not exactly sure, although they must have realized that they were meant to bring good to the world, the former through his love and knowledge of science and the latter through his love of creative cooking. To use our natural talents and abilities and our spiritual gifts whatever they may be is to please God and thus fulfill his purpose for us. And in using them to fulfill His purpose, we also glorify God, which is the chief end of man according to the Westminster Catechism. We will probably find joy in doing so as well, and thus, fulfill the other part (…and enjoy Him…).
But, how do you get a vision? It should come from your purpose. Having determined your purpose, dream a little. Let your mind wander over ways to fulfill it. It may be helpful to write down what comes to your mind at this point. God told the prophet Habakkuk in 2:2 to “Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that reads it.” Writing will help to clarify the vision as well to implant it in your mind‘s eye. Out of several, one dream should become prominent. Then simply imagine yourself fulfilling it. Spend time every day with the vision before your mind‘s eye. Mentally see yourself actually fulfilling the vision.
Once the vision is firmly implanted in your mind, let it become your driving force. Let the vision excite you with the possibility of its fulfillment and you will automatically begin the next step--you are on a mission.
Your mission is to bring about the realization of the vision. If you keep the vision in mind, you will move forward in the mission, accomplishing enthusiastically step by step that which is necessary to bring the vision into reality.
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QUOTABLE QUOTES:
1) "Where there is no vision, the people perish."
---Proverbs 29:18
2) "We are all visionaries, and what we see is our soul in things."
---Henri Amyl, Journal
3) "Cherish your visions and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul, the blueprints of your ultimate achievements."
---Napoleon Hill
4) "What every man needs, regardless of his job or the kind of work he is doing, is a vision of what his place is and may be. He needs an objective and a purpose. He needs a feeling and a belief that he has some worthwhile thing to do. What this is no one can tell him. It must be his own creation."
---Joseph M. Dodge
5) "Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
---Carl Jung
6) "In order to use creative visualization to create what you want in life, you must be willing and able to accept the best that life has to offer you--your good."
---Shakti Gawain
7) "The visionary disciplines himself to see the world always as if he had only just seen it for the first time."
---Colin Wilson{1931}
8) "A man's mind, stretched by a new idea, can never go back to its original dimension."
---Oliver Wendell Holmes
9) "I see in you all the possibilities of the world. Like an unidentified seed planted in the garden, the world waits to see how you will bloom. It will be wonderful, for God is your gardener."
---Bob Perks
10) "Have the dogged determination to follow through to achieve your goal; regardless of circumstances or whatever other people say, think, or do."
---Paul Meyer
11) "Then the LORD answered me and said: 'write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end, it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. '"
---Habakkuk (2:1-3)
12) "...For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. ...for they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country."
---Paul (Hebrews :11:10 & 11)
13) "...Looking unto Jesus, ...who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of God."
---Paul (Hebrews 12:2)