Vision: Seeing What Jesus Shows Us by Hal Poe

Now I teach college, but when I was a college student, the hardest task of the day involved deciding where to eat lunch. It was a dreadful decision. A group of us might sit immobile for thirty minutes or more hashing over the options. The options never changed. We always knew what they were. The paralysis only ended when a leader emerged who finally said, "Let's go to the Anchor Café."

Deciding Where to Go

The first task of leadership is to decide where to go. Those who can't lead keep going to the same old place. The destination of a group determines its future, but the dream of a destination does not insure the future. The leader must also show the group how to reach the destination. Many a time a group of my friends set out our freshman year for some legendary restaurant we had heard about. Once we decided to go to a seafood restaurant that offered all the shrimp we could eat. Unfortunately, we got lost because nobody knew how to get there.

Showing the Way

Sometimes a leader can imitate another leader and duplicate their success. Sometimes they imitate the rhetoric of another leader and duplicate their inability to lead. It does not take a leader to do the same old thing the same old way, as often happens in religious institutions. Columbus argued that anyone could cross the ocean once he had shown the way. Daniel Boone had to blaze a trail through the wilderness, but he had the advantage of skill at recognizing the trails that the Native Americans had followed. Columbus had a compass. Every leader needs some basis for determining the direction they will go and the course they will follow. It takes a plan to get there from here, otherwise going in circles will work.

Reading the Signs

Christian leaders have the same advantage as Daniel Boone. Someone has gone ahead who has blazed the trail. All we have to do is read the signs. Fads come and go in every area of American life, so it should not surprise us that American pastors also fall for fads. It can be the same sort of dynamic that motivates teenagers to fall in line with the latest style of hair or makeup or clothes. One of the great buzz words today is "vision." Unfortunately, vision often comes across as meaning some grand new scheme, which really only means imitating what seems to be working somewhere else. Somehow, the clothes on the model in the glamour magazine don't look the same when the local children wear them. Somehow, another person's vision does not look the same back home. The problem is not with vision, but with recognizing that vision does not mean the same scheme for everybody. Vision is as particular as calling. Vision means seeing what you are called to do.

Vision is not a matter of pure creative imagination if it is a vision for Christ's ministry. Vision means seeing the clues that Christ has placed in our way that will help us understand what we need to be doing. In the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus describes several people preoccupied with what they thought was "their vision." They were so busy trying to do what everyone else in their position was doing that they missed their calling. They could not see the clue lying in their path. They did not recognize what God wanted them to see. The clue was there, but the clue did not fit in with the way things had been done.

Vision is always value driven. We see what is important to us. Jesus had a knack for noticing the people around him. He did different things with different kinds of people. He did not have just one routine. He noticed tax collectors up trees and women who touched the hem of his garment. Vision means seeing the people and opportunities that God has placed in our path. When our heart is in tune with Christ, we have the values that allow us to see.

The Signs of the Times

Each age has its own issues, then they pass away to be replaced by new issues. At one time, the most important thing for priests and Levites to do was to make their way to Jerusalem without interruption, but that was when God was teaching them not to flirt with other gods. By the time Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, the issues had changed. In the mean time, Jesus continues to put clues in our path. These are the signs he means for us to see. That's vision.

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This article originally appeared in the Union University Bulletin (Vol. 111, Issue 1). Used by permission.

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Hal Poe is Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University in Jackson, TN.