Vision | strongandpure

ADV’ANCE, verb intransitive

1. To move or go forward; to proceed; as, the troops advanced.

2. To improve, or make progress; to grow better, greater, wiser or older; as, to advance in knowledge, in stature, in wisdom, or in years.

3. To rise in rank, office, or consequence; to be preferred, or promoted; as, to advance in political standing.

Source: http://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/advance

I have never before received my word for the new year so far in advance. Coincidence? No, not at all. This morning as I was driving my son to school I simply offered the thought in prayer, “What will my 2021 word be?” Fast as lightning the word ADVANCE came to my thoughts without hesitation and with such force I knew. I knew it was to be my word for 2021.

I understood the idea immediately. 2020 has been a year of shrinking, tighter and smaller worlds, losing freedoms. It has been a divisive year with passions rising on every side of the issue. Some of us, having lived under socialist regimes in other places, recognized some unwelcome and familiar patterns and our alarm grew with each new restriction. Despite knowing my hope and my security is not in our government, nor in the political systems that bring it about, I do admit more than once fear began to rise in my heart. Had my family sacrificed so much to escape to a place of freedom only to be brought back under the clutches of socialism?

Yes, 2020 has felt very restricting. Regardless of how you feel about the pandemic and its shutdowns, restrictions, and changes all of us have had our worlds shrink. It feels like we have lost ground. When ADVANCE interjected into my thoughts so forcefully and quickly it jolted me. It was not the word I would have picked had I been given the opportunity to choose one myself over the next few weeks. It seems to stand in such stark contrast to what 2020 has been. I knew. I just knew this was God’s word for me for 2021. I don’t know what it means exactly and how it will play out in every area of life, but this I know: it will.

One area seems to be a given. I have applied for Grad School to finally begin work on my Master’s Degree in Counselling Psychology. This was the goal line I had when I started my university education back in 2000. Twenty-one years later I am beginning the last lap of that journey. Or at least the last lap that I have planned, but I’m not sure now it is the end of the journey. My advance has come in spurts and taken much longer than I had anticipated. If I had my way and stuck to my plans I would have completed my education in 2007. That’s not how it worked out.

Advances are like that sometimes. We would love for them to be a steady forward motion with little resistance and little effort. Advances don’t come through comfort. Advances come through adventure and trial and sacrifice and pain. Advances sometimes seem small and other times seem to be reversals. Advances don’t fit neatly and perfectly into an ordered life. They are not wall-flowers, nor discreet. Advances make a mess, take energy and effort, and sometimes leave you bloodied. Advances come at a cost. Sometimes at great costs. What I know without a shadow of a doubt: advances are never mediocre. They are not safe.

Advances blaze like the word itself did this morning. They disrupt the routine and the quiet. Advances rock the boat and force change on the willing and unwilling alike. Advances are not always welcomed by those who are caught in their orbit. Advances can leave us wounded and wound those we care about. Never because we want to hurt them, but because our enemy is determined not to allow us to advance. Advances come with resistance. By their very nature they have to. It’s not an advance if it doesn’t take effort.

This one thing I know:

I don’t depend on my own strength to accomplish this; however I do have one compelling focus: I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future instead. I run straight for the divine invitation of reaching the heavenly goal and gaining the victory-prize through the anointing of Jesus. So let all who are fully mature have this same passion, and if anyone is not yet gripped by these desires, God will reveal it to them. And let us all advance together to reach this victory-prize, following one path with one passion. Philippians 3:13-16 TPT

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Steven Pisano

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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Category Archives: Vision

2021: ADVANCE

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