What are you living for? – #MotivationalMonday
Is there anything worse than living without a dream? I bet we all know Walt Disney’s story – how a young cartoonist became the name behind one of the world’s largest amusement parks. Someone once asked while walking through one of his parks, “I wonder what Walt Disney would think if he could see all this today.” The other person replied, “He saw it.”
There’s a thrill in waking up every morning to work towards something; it’s like fuel for our everyday life. It is said that the poorest man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream. However, it’s one thing to dream, and it’s another to see the dream as a possible reality. The latter is called vision.
Helen Keller, who was blind, said, “Worse than being blind would be, to be able to see, but not have vision.” It is then not a surprise when Solomon in Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.” The message version says, “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.”
The message of vision excites me, but what excites me even more is the above revelation that vision comes from God. Vision elevates a dream from a picture of what could be, to an appeal to better ourselves and a call to become something more. It is not only a hope and motivation, but also God’s way of revealing His intentions for our lives.
An illustration is given of three bricklayers working beside each other on a wall. Someone came up to the first one and asked, “What are you doing?” “What does it look like I am doing?” he replied sarcastically, “I am laying bricks!”
The man asked the next guy on the wall what he was doing. He said, “Can’t you see what I am doing? I am building a wall.” Then the last man was asked what he was doing. He exclaimed, “I am building a great cathedral for God!”
Who of the three do you think will do the best work and work the hardest? This short story represents our lives and our ability to see the big picture. Vision acts as a bridge between the present and the future, which we are assured of in Jeremiah 29:11. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
God’s plans for our lives were established before the foundations of the earth. He calls us therefore not only to visualise those dreams but to pursue them relentlessly.
When the impossibilities of your dreams discourage you, remember that vision is God’s way of showing you what He has already established. In other words, when God speaks or places something in your heart, He is not hoping it will happen; He knows it will happen.
Many times when we look at our present situations in comparison to our dreams, it feels like getting blood from a stone. And there will always be a hindrance in the pursuit of your dreams. Fear will try to convince you that you cannot do it, your finances will probably confirm it, and the people around you will remind you just how impossible it is. But amidst all this, remember that the absence of sense is the presence of faith. Vision sets us off on a journey of faith and complete trust in God. So the more unrealistic it is, the better for you because you get to believe some more.
Paul in Ephesians 3:20 says, “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!” So go ahead and visualise your dreams, it is only a fraction of what He is able to do.
To bring the dreams from the unseen world and into the natural realm, we are encouraged to write the visions down. God tells Habakkuk in Habakkuk 2:3 “Record the vision and inscribe it on tablets…”
