Vision is the ability to see what could be rather than what is.
A leader with vision sees the changes needed around him (and many times in himself!) and looks to lead in those areas to affect change. A person with vision is driven by a picture of a preferred future.
One of my favorite illustrations of vision is Walt Disney’s dream to build Disney World in Florida. Everyone thought he was crazy, including his family and close associates. The part of Florida that Disney wanted to place his theme park in was nothing but empty swamp land and orange groves. But he had a vision for it – a picture in his mind of what it would be. Sadly, Walt died before Disney World opened to the public. As the story goes, at the opening of the park, someone remarked to Walt’s brother Roy with a well-intentioned comment that it was “sad that Walt did not live to see the park completed”. Roy replied smartly along the lines of, “He did see it. That’s why we are standing here today”. That’s vision.
Vision precedes ALL accomplishment. If you completed anything good without first thinking of it, planning for it, and acting on those plans, then whatever happened was not an accomplishment, it’s a “happy accident”, to quote the great Bob Ross.
One of the most fascinating things to me about vision is the process of something that is ethereal – just an idea – turning into a tangible reality. In fact, everything physically tangible in our world did not start out that way – everything started out as just an idea in someone’s head. An artist, or an engineer, or an architect, or a computer nerd, or someone, somewhere had an idea. And as that idea ruminated in their minds and took shape, it became a vision. It became a vision that was shared with others, who then began to collectively take action on that vision, and the end result was a tangible, functional, beautiful, reality. It looks like this:
Dreams –> Vision –> Action –> Reality
This is the process of vision, of moving things forward. By the way, this process is unique to humanity! I maintain that humans are the only creatures with vision! My dog does not have a vision for her life. I did not see her making a New Year’s resolution list at the beginning of this year. She is not actively designing plans to build a tool that will allow her to open the cabinet where I keep her treats (cursed non-apposable paws!). Human beings, on the other hand, are created in the image of God and part of that imago Deo is the ability to dream, to refine that dream into a vision, to take action on that vision, and to see a new reality take shape.
The most striking example of this vision process that I know of is the story of the creation of the iPhone. Steve Jobs, the famed Apple CEO, had a vision of a “smart phone” – a computer with a touch screen that would fit in your pocket. Before the release of the iPhone there was nothing like it on the market, particularly the touch screen part. Jobs’ vision was to remove all the buttons that had existed on the previous Apple products like iPod, and other products like Blackberry, and allow the user interface to be completely controlled by fingertip touch. This had never been done before on a device this small, and frankly not much at all. In fact, at the Apple event revealing the first iPhone, this new touch-screen technology shocked the audience present and subsequently the world. I would encourage you to find the video of the 2007 Apple Conference where Steve presents the iPhone and watch for the part where he introduces the scroll feature. When he “swipes” that screen with his finger to move the music albums up and down (a feature we now take for granted and use a thousand times a day), the gasps from the audience are audible. His vision becoming a tangible reality literally sucked the air out of the room.
Where there is no vision, the people perish:
But he that keeps the law, happy is he.
Proverbs 29:18
The word vision in this verse means “revelation” or “divine guidance”. The context is that we should get our direction, our dreams, our vision, and our plans from the Lord.
The word perish does not necessarily mean death as we might be inclined to think; it more accurately is understood to mean “not caring about anything”. It means to be empty, vacant, unoccupied; to have no direction and no potential. To have no vision for your life, your family, your work, your ministry, or your future is to perish in some real way.
When I think of this verse, I think of an empty building that I often pass in Metro Manila. Since I moved to the city over a decade ago, this 10+ story building has sat unfinished, empty, vacuous. What happens over time to a vacant building? A building with no purpose or use? It begins to decay. It begins to perish. It has lost its purpose, lost its potential, and therefore loses its glory and use. The same thing can happen to a person, a family, an organization, or a congregation.
Vision and the actions that follow fight against this sort of degradation around us.
This post is a part of a series of posts that are excerpts from my book “Finding Your Midpoint: Locating the Balanced Positions for Your Life and Ministry” – available on Amazon or wherever books are sold.