Where there is no vision, the people perish. Proverbs 29:18

A leader without a vision is in a very dangerous situation.  When the leader is gone for one reason or another then the organization will be in grave danger.  We need to look for the vision and it will come.  We need to seek it and the Lord is gracious to give us one.  A vision is a dream, a picture of a preferred future.  There is a purpose behind everything.   A nice story to illustrate this point.  One day a man was walking and happened to pass by a building site.  There were three men preparing building blocks out of a stone.  They were doing exactly the same work.  Each one of these three men had a different mood.  The first one is very upset and seem to be very bored and did not want to speak to anybody.  The man passing by approached him and asked the first one what he was doing.  The man without even looking up said you see what I am doing, it is a very boring job, I am just preparing stones for building.  Then he went to the second one who appears to be a little bit cheerful and seem to be enjoying what he was doing smiling and happy.  He asked him the same question, “What are you doing?” The 2^nd man said, I am building a fence.  He looked around and He did not see any fence.  Then he went to the third man, who appeared to be on cloud 9, flying, singing and enjoying his work.  And he was very busy and did not want to waste his time.  The man asked him, I notice you are very busy and don’t want to waste your time but May I ask you what you are doing?  The man looked at him smiling and said I am building a cathedral.  Why was such a difference between these three men doing the same thing? Because each one saw something behind what they were doing and so their vision gave them a different kind of satisfaction. The first want did not see any goal behind what he was doing so he felt bored and it will not be surprising if he left the job.  The second one could see something bigger so he was a little bit more cheerful.  The third one was enjoying his work because he could see something very big like a Cathedral.   He may not even see it being completed for it takes a long time.  But he was able to envision this big Cathedral and that was what motivated him to continue to do his job.  What are we building?  What are we part of? It is an important question for all servants.

The vision is the ultimate end.  It is the finale destination. This is where we want our people or ourselves ahead of us.  Our mission of life is how to reach the vision by having goals.  For each goal, there will be a lot of activities.  The goal is short-term like a year.  The goal is a set of activities or smart steps that are achievable and measurable.  The activities are the building blocks.  But the activities have to be interrelated into one goal.   In this pyramid, we spend a lot of time at the bottom which is the activities without mapping out our goals and mission.  And it is highly unlikely that we even think about what our vision should be.  As a Church, do we have a vision for the next 10 years?  Where do we envision our Church to be? If servants do not see a clear vision, it would not be surprising if they left their service.

Jesus had a purpose driven life.  He had a very clear vision, a well stated mission and He had one goal that He kept following and then He had many activities to do during His 3 and half years ministry.  And all of His activities were interlinked together to the goal, to achieve His mission and to realize His vision.

He made His vision very clear.  He said, I came that they may have life abundantly. The better life is His vision.  He is coming back to restore the life that was taken away from us by the fall of Adam and even to give us a better life than the one that was promised at the beginning of creation.  He came to realize this vision.  The mission for the 3 and half year was announced when He said on Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed.

This is the life mission of Jesus Christ.  His goal was the Cross.  Because through the Cross, salvation will be completed and that new life He came to proclaim will be fulfilled.  What were His activities?  How did He spend His time?  He summarized it when Saint John the Baptist sent some disciples to ask Him, are you the Messiah we are waiting for or someone else?  Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see:  The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.  This is the job description of Jesus.  This is where He spent most of His time, preaching, healing, comforting, talking, modeling, making disciples, and leading by empowering.  All of these things were coming together to achieve His going to the Cross.  The world crucified Him precisely for these activities.  The activities led Him to the Cross.  The authorities were concerned when the dead is raised and people start to believe.  It is only through the Cross, He was able to achieve the mission, He came for and the vision that He was entrusted with.  We need to draw this pyramid for our Church.  God gave us the faculty of reason and thinking so we can use it and glorify His name.