So here I am back from Men's Weekend. The thing I always look forward to most is the time alone with God on Sunday morning. We all spend 2.5 hours reflecting on our life as men in Christ and coming up with a battle plan for the upcoming year. I would call this a vision for my life in the next 12 months. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think enough people come up with visions for their life. I think in general we look to leaders for vision. We fail to realize how important a stated, measurable vision is for every area of life. Call them goals if you want. Whatever word you want to use, create a vision for the important areas of your life.
Proverbs 29:18 says "without vision the people cast off restraint". Some translations say "the people die". I think that's a bit extreme, death that is, but to cast off retraint I think is really appropriate. That's the problem with people really. We fail to see the vision of better life that Christ is calling us to...that by having lives that are more in line with that of Christ that His glory would be more known through us. Casting off restraint is what gets us into trouble. We start to do the things we know we shouldn't because we're not being disciplined. So we get fat and we gossip and we sleep too much or look at porn or whatever it is the casting off of restraint makes us do. Its only by seeking to follow the example of Christ and being CONFORMED to his image that we really are able to make His glory known. Think of it this way...do you remember those jello molds your mom used to make (or you make)? Without the confines of the mold the jello doesn't look much like anything. But with a bit of constraint the jello can take the shape of the mold its placed into. Our life in Christ needs confines. We need restraint.
So for me I've made a list of goals for my time with Christ, for prayer, for my character flaws, for my health, for my family and in several other areas. I don't do these things to make God love me...he already does. Thank God for his grace! I do these things in the hopes that I might be a more accurate reflection of Christ and be increasingly so as each day goes by. Sola gloria deo!
Great post Tim. Beyond the men's retreat, this concept of vision setting just keeps coming up for me in so many ways lately - for one, we're doing a study tomorrow night on that topic at cell. It's a perfect storm of vision-thinking!
ReplyDeleteCouple thoughts:
1. Just a heads up that the reference you're going for is Proverbs 29:18, not 28:19.
2. I don't think that the idea of "death" is extreme. When you consider that the use of the word "death" could be referring to spiritual death and combine that with the mandate in Hebrews 12 to "fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith" (the ultimate in vision casting), I think it's reasonable to say that not having a vision for Jesus results in spiritual death.
thanks for the corerction. It's my dislexia showing up again :) I'll edit it. And you're right, death is not extreme in one sense...I only said that because the texts are inconclusive as you whether its death or confusion that results.
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