“Where there is no vision the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18
“Without a sense of possibilities, life is less than it could be, and smaller than God provides.”
My thoughts today are about “seeing beyond sight.”
Live life large. That’s what the human spirit was made for, and for what the heart longs. I have good news: it is possible for you to extend the boundaries you assumed unchangeable. It is your choice, and no one can do it for you.
That starts with vision, seeing something in your heart and spirit that does not yet exist in your reality, but may certainly be real within God’s possibilities. I call that seeing beyond sight. What you see readily is rarely all that there is to see. What seems obvious may hide so much more.
Vision provides inspiration and direction for you. I think I could properly paraphrase today’s verse in this way, “Without a sense of future possibilities, life is less than it could be, and smaller than God provides.” You may not be a Star Trek fan, but I loved the bravery and courage of Captain Jean Luc Picard, “Things are only impossible, until they are not!” (Star Trek: The Next Generation) Isn’t it needlessly tragic when a person accepts life less than it could be and smaller than God provides? Do you? Vision is not hard to gain; everyone has dreams and aspirations for something more, something better. But those can be difficult to hold onto when vision struggles with contradicting realities of the moment.
Here’s the Bible’s answer for those moments: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. Faith sees beyond sight – reaching expectantly into the hoped for and not yet seen. Faith looks at the endless possibilities in God instead of the common improbabilities in you. The Bible is a grand story, His story of doing extraordinary things through very ordinary people in impossible situations. You can be a part of that story of an incredible God Who is “able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV.
But you can allow life to become smaller than it is meant to be when you accept limits because of your previous experiences, present circumstances, view of future possibilities, or yours or others’ estimations of your limited abilities and resources. When challenges confront your sense of a preferred future, vision can be the first thing to go. Most people struggle to see life the way it could be, because they only see their life as it presently appears and then accept that as fact and a predictor of their future.
Two of my best friends are struggling right now with impaired vision. But from experience they know that things are not as they presently appear to them. They choose to see beyond sight. Their visual reality at the moment is not a true reality; it’s just the effect of their limited ability to see things as they really are. Far more people, and with far greater consequence, have impaired vision spiritually. Let God give you a vision for your life that is consistent with His character and will guide you everyday into His greater purpose. See 1 Corinthians 2:9-16 NIV.
My prayer for you today is for you to see your future clearly as God gives you sight and insight.