If you have kids or have been a kid (all of us) then you’ve either asked or heard this question before: are we there yet? We ask it because we want to know if we have arrived or if we have to keep traveling for a while. There is a question we need to ask before we can ask if we have arrived. We cannot know if we are there yet if we don’t know where there is!
Most of us have an idea of the destination we intend to reach before we set out on any trip, if for no other reason than to determine if we have enough fuel to get us to the next fuel stop. We need to know where we are going before we go. You could say we have a vision.
Vision can be a scary word. It can bring to mind grandiose plans to take over the world! It can remind us of big, scary changes that we experienced because someone else had a vision for the future. It can bring to mind uncomfortable times in our past when the world was turned upside down because of someone else’s vision. Vision may even seem like a buzz word for executives and leaders, or over-enthusiastic network marketing gurus. It’s not something you and I use every day is it?
Will Mancini says, “Vision is for everyone, everyday.” If you are looking forward to something, anything, sometime in the future then you are using vision. If you’re looking forward to a vacation, your child’s graduation, the big game next week, or even dinner tonight, you are employing vision. Vision simply allows us to aim for something specific sometime in the future.
You could say vision is like a road map, or a compass, that allows us to point our lives in a specific direction. While I’m all for a great dinner, vacation or some other celebration, I think we can harness vision to aim our lives toward a bigger goal. I think we need to harness vision toward a goal that is larger than life; a goal that leaves a legacy for generations. And I think that when we come together as a family, we can broaden our reach, strengthen our aim and widen our influence.
In Hebrews 12:1 the writer says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”
Whether or not we are aware of it, you and I have a race to run. It’s not a sprint and it’s not a marathon. Our race is a relay race. Each one of us receives the baton from someone who ran before us and each one of us needs to pass the baton to someone who is going to run after us. Those who came before us are counting on us to carry the baton forward to the next generation. Those who come after us are counting on us to bring the baton to their exchange zone and pass it forward to them.
At Lifehouse Victory Church we have a dream to grow a church where home is together and everyone belongs. Everyone has a part to play. In a relay race it does not matter how fast any one of the runners is. It does not matter how well any one of the runners hands off the baton. It does not even matter whether or not the runners imagined themselves as relay runners when they were growing up. What matters is that everyone runs their leg of the race, that they stay in their lane, and that they hand off the baton cleanly to the next runner. The team that can do all of that and stay focused on the end goal is that team that wins the relay.
Vision allows you and I to stay in our lane even when other lanes look more exciting or more rewarding. Vision allows you and I to receive the baton from those who came before us and run our leg, even when its hard, when it costs us something. Vision allows us to hand off the baton cleanly to the next runners even when we don’t understand their generation and wish they would just get a job and grow up and take life more seriously.
At Lifehouse Victory Church we have a Vision and we have a race to run. We want to help you run your race and run it well. Do you see the Vision we see?
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