What’s something you want more than anything? Okay. Think about it for a second.
Got it in your mind? Now, tell me, how are you going to reach your goal? What steps do you need to take to get there?
Many people like to dream for the future and create a vision board for their goals, but very few actually make it there.
I think there are two reasons why: they lack discipline, or they don’t have a big enough vision.
A God-sized vision.
Something wonderful about my personality is that when I want something, I go for it 110%. I can see it in my mind. As I go along, I get very enthusiastic, and when my goal is close it feels like I can taste it.
In 2016, I was in $30,000 of debt and I wanted financial freedom so bad. I knew I had to do the hard work of getting a job and paying off more than the interest if I actually wanted to be debt free, so I had to have some vision. What I saw was that if I kept spending my money the way that I wanted, I would be in trouble in the long run. It was not a pretty sight, but when I acknowledged where I was at and started to make small steps forward, things started to change. Of course, there were times along the way that I wanted to give up and splurge on something, but when I thought about how awesome it would feel to bank my first paycheck and not have to pay anything else off, it kept me going.
The downside of my personality is that if I lack vision, or I follow my own blurry vision, I can go very confidently in the wrong direction. For example, there has been many times where I thought my plan was the right one and I set it into motion without asking Jesus if it’s what he wanted for my life. Or I chose my own plan disobediently, and hoped that God would bless me anyway.
A verse that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is Proverbs 29:18. It says “When there is no clear prophetic vision, people quickly wander astray. But when you follow the revelation of the word, heaven’s bliss fills your soul.”
This can happen in several areas of our lives, not just finances. If we lack vision on how we want our wedding day to look like, we might compromise our purity for three minutes of pleasure. If we lack vision on how healthy we want to be, we might continue to fuel our bodies with mediocre food and binge on Netflix because we don’t see ourselves as temples of the Holy Spirit. If we lack vision on what God wants us to do with our lives, we might fly to a foreign country to get away and find out that His purposes and plans were right where we were all along.
The point is we need clear vision to see how to reach what God wants for our lives. In every area. He wants us to dream big with him.
2020 is the year of vision. I think we’ve realized by now that what we’re seeing in our own lives (and the world at large) is what we’ve swept under the rug. A lot of what may have been serving us in the past actually has a large ugly underbelly. Maybe you don’t like what you see right now. Maybe your time with Jesus has brought up past hurts, failures, and bad habits that aren’t Instagram worthy. This is why the second part of this verse is so important.
We need prophetic vision, but we also need revelation of His word.
In Psalms 119:105 it says God’s word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We can dream big, but we need His direction and His voice to guide us. Not only so we go the right way, but so we go at the right pace. We have a race to run and I think we’re just getting started.
I don’t think vision changes everything. We still have to put in work to reach our goals. In Hebrews 12:1-2 it talks about how when we run our race that we need to throw off every weight or every sin that entangles us and run with perseverance, fixing our eyes on Him who is the author and the perfecter of our faith.
When we look at Him, we will always know where to go.
We still might make a few mistakes along the way. But even when we take a misstep or we fall, we have His grace and His vision for our lives to keep us going.
~ Soquel Filice
