The Vision Pt 2: You can’t see it until you see it

Let’s recap yesterday’s blog before we continue.  I asked several questions: What do you see when you close your eyes?  Do you see your potential, possibilities or failures?  Can you see yourself as: (you fill in the blank)? 

Most people dream about something (e.g. home, car, sending their children to private schools, travelling, graduating with honors, obtaining a degree, living debt free, owning a business, becoming a model, professional athlete, singer, Rapper, etc.) but far too many people allow those dreams to die.  The primary way they die is because they are not written out, there is no plan of action to birth them and before you know it, it’s 15-20 years later and you’re stuck on the hamster wheel living from paycheck to paycheck or you have a business that owns you instead of the you owning the business.

If you don’t have a lifetime subscription to Hateration it is possible that you actually celebrate the success of others, which is amazing, but when will we be able to help you celebrate your success?  I can almost guarantee the majority of the people we celebrate created a plan and though I am sure they probably tweaked it along the way the end result was an implemented idea which became a fulfilled vision (their dream realized) – record deal, published writings, college degree, promotion on the job, keys to your new business, home, car, etc. 

Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. Habakkuk 2:2 (NKJV)  was the foundational scripture for this blog, however, I skipped over to James 1:17 which says all gifts come from heaven to substantiate that regardless of the person’s spiritual status or whether their gift is something that edifies (adds to, improves) the body of Believers or not, gifts comes from God, all of them.  I am not talking about things I am talking about specific abilities we are naturally equipped with.  What the person does with the gift is their choice, but there is no denying ALL gifts come from heaven where God resides.  Generally speaking those dreams/vision are interrelated with our gifts (special abilities).  The gifts are relevant because if you can identify it/them and use it as a way to make your living and/or share it with the world that’s one of the ways to fulfill your purpose.

Let’s skip back to Habakkuk.  As I pointed out yesterday the vision/dream that we have, ultimately comes from God who equips us with the capacity and capability to make the dream a reality, however, it will take work, faith, creativity and commitment.  Of these four qualities, I believe commitment is the most important.  Why?  As I see it, the commitment will give you the inspiration to believe even when you can’t see one hand in front of the other.  It will give you the staying power to continue the work you started at the initial onset of (your task) and/or you had people who said they would do this, that and the third but ultimately left you hanging.  Commitment will allow you to discard a creative idea that didn’t produce the results you were looking for and rather than throwing in the towel it will drive you to come up with another one.  Commitment is a beast honey if you use it for the right purpose.  It will help you to look rejection right in the eyeballs and say: “boy, bye”.  In other words:

·       The person who gives you a “no” just got you closer to your yes; or

·       An average of 10 no’s will lead you to your yes; or

·       No today may mean yes tomorrow; or

It’s not that we don’t have dreams for the most part, I think it’s that we’re afraid to pursue them for a variety of reasons but I would venture to say the primary reason is fear.  Fear of failing, rejection, etc.  As odd as it may sound, there are people that are afraid of succeeding and they will go to great lengths to protect their position of mediocrity up to and including self-sabotage.  Talk about an oxymoron. 

Let’s fast forward to Revelations.  Apostle John, one of the original disciples, had a vision of the New Jerusalem and was instructed to write it down.  And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true. Revelations 21:5 (NLT).  His vision is different from the ones we have about our goals, desires, etc..  This vision was specifically for the body of Christ.  According to statistics we only retain about 25% of what we hear after about three hours and it is even lower 10-20% after three days.  The likelihood that John would have remembered the vision in its entirety was slim to none.  It was necessary for John to write what he saw so that he could read it and recall it with accuracy, whenever it was needed and pass it on.

Let’s moonwalk back to Habakkuk.  He was instructed to “make it (the vision) plain.”  In other words to make it understandable.  How many times have you been to a worship service to have someone shout, stomp and spit on you while they “preach the gospel” on full volume as if they are having an aneurysm or yelling at you like you’re hard of hearing?  The gospel has been over complicated for years with all of our religiousity; trying to impress people because we defined a Greek or Hebrew word that we mis-pronounce; taking scriptures out of context; watering the word down or putting it on so thick that people are guilted into doing what the preacher/leader wants them to do, all of which ultimately change the vision from its intended message. 

OK, Tania, that’s great but what does that have to do with my dream?  I’m glad you asked.  There is more than one type of vision as you can see from the examples given above but the overall point that I wanted to drive home is that we have to guard our dream(s) to ensure that we don’t allow anyone to sabotage them including ourselves and we should not add or take away anything God reveals to us.   

When you close your eyes, what do you see?  If you don't see it first, you'll never see it at all.

I’m out of time, we’ll pick it up tomorrow.

In His New Excellence,

Tania not Tanya