I have been thinking about having vision (or a dream or a goal) again. I wrote recently about bucket lists and the gal who said that she didn’t dream of “bucket lists” because they had to no money, so there was no reason to think about it. I woke up this morning and had this thought pop into my head, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Prov 29:18
Isn’t that interesting to think about. When we have no vision or goal, we perish. It’s true and part of what I was trying to describe in the “bucket list” post. Without a goal or direction, we lose hope and become depressed. We don’t look forward. We go through motions, but for what? We must have something to keep us moving forward. If we didn’t want to reach the peak and see the vistas and majesty of beauty, we would never climb the mountain. And climbing the mountain isn’t easy, but getting to the top and reaching the goal is indescribable. If we set our goals low and decide that we can’t go to the top of the mountain, but only part way up, we will never feel the “high” of accomplishment and we will never know the grandeur of the view from the top. How many people do you know that have no vision or dream or goal? Are they perishing? Are they going through the motions? Do they feel hopeless and in despair?
An interesting side note to this that popped into my mind along with the scripture is this: The prophets were considered “visionaries” as well. They would receive visions of what their people should do and also of things to come. When the prophets were rejected and considered “crazy,” the people would not listen and obey and then they would perish. How many times did the children of Israel become captive and taken away or put into bondage? This usually came about because they quit listening to the prophet. They took their sites off Christ.
Did you catch that? They took their sites off Christ. They weren’t looking to Him anymore. They weren’t living the commandments. Their goals and focus were on idols and money and power. They didn’t listen to the prophets. (Listening to the prophet is looking to Christ because they are His mouthpiece.) I have pondered this in my own life. When I just go about wanting “things” but have not set my sites on the Savior and following Him, my life really lacks vision. It becomes greedy and selfish. But when I focus on Christ and how He lived and how I can follow His example, then things seem to change for me. For example, I love to travel because I love to meet people from all over the world. I love learning about new cultures and lives. And what I love most is to see how, no matter where I go in the world, there are really good people who are basically trying to live good lives and love their families. When I want to travel for myself, I don’t get as much out of my trips. So one thing I try to do when I travel is see if there is any good I can do when I go. I always try to find a church to attend if I am traveling on Sunday. Then I try to contact someone in that church and see if there is anything we can do for them when we come. We have been able to bring clothing, scriptures, and do humanitarian projects on some of our trips because of that. It’s a very simple thing, but it brings so much joy AND it helps me to meet the people and get to know them. I have developed some great friendships with many of these people.
So have a vision. Have a dream. Have a goal. But keep Christ as your main goal and focus, then all the others will fall into place. One way to keep Christ in focus is that we live the commandments and laws. When we do this, we can reach our goals, but do it correctly. The last line in Proverbs 29:18 says, “but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” When we have a vision and we live the commandments, we will truly be happy.
Got vision? You bet!
1/14/12