Many people today say they have no visions to speak of, but i’ve got this idea rolling around in my head that says just because we don’t recognize them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. i believe if God didn’t give us vision first, we wouldn’t have any ideas. Those ideas had to start someplace and come from someone. It certainly wasn’t the inanimate “universe” which planted the seeds of dreams and visions in us. And if we think we are the generator of such things, we should take Romans12:3 more seriously. The universe doesn’t hear, see, comprehend, or impart knowledge, wisdom, insight, ideas, or vision, and to think it came from ourselves is down right self-centered. It is God who makes us alive, not ourselves, and not the universe.
Trust God to open the eyes of your heart and soul to see what He sees. Vision is one of God’s attributes. When Jesus comes and takes up residence in our hearts, with Him comes vision, the ability to perceive distant things, and even to understand what it is we’re looking at.
Vision and the idea of vision is so important that companies have what’s called a “vision statement”, which is a description of what an organization would like to achieve or accomplish in the mid-term or long-term future. It is intended to serve as a clear guide for choosing current and future courses of action. We, as people in general, don’t mind if a corporation has vision, and we understand if someone says a business failed because it had no vision. But if people, as individuals say “i have visions”, suddenly the general public starts to back away and that person gets labeled as “odd” or “peculiar”. i say, if you’re a believer and have accepted Christ as your Savior, you’re supposed to have vision, and if you don’t, you need to explore the question, “Why not?” Is vision truly not with you, or is it that they are and you’re just not noticing, which is highly likely the rest of the story.
When people have no vision they are called blind, but what do you call people who have eyes for everything but the Lord? Or people who see but don’t understand what they’re looking at, as in to them it doesn’t make sense, but they seem satisfied to just marvel and then go off to the next vision or dream. Sometimes our vision happens in our sleeping dream place. i know one fellow who dreams so often and so big, he doesn’t care anymore and literally wishes they would all just go away.
It’s odd to me that often, the truth is, we have vision and we see our options before they happen, but because the vision doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t occur to us to ask the Lord to clarify … instead we ignore it all until it’s faded away, barely a memory.
And one more little tid bit as to the idea of the presence of God, what do we mean when we say “presence”? Did you know that the word for God’s presence directly relates to the idea of seeing and having visions? Very interesting indeed!
To me, vision is being able to see where you’re going, to see what’s up the road ahead, in both literal and figurative senses, or to have actual visual insight into the deeper meaning of things, and, one definition of pro-vision is anything which supports the accomplishing of the vision. When vision means being able to see your options before they happen…that would be called foresight.
Understanding foresight and hindsight would be “insight”, and being able to compare the path your on with where you’ve been would be “hindsight”. Hindsight helps us have insight into who we have become, but you know like i know, we cannot live always looking back in hindsight alone.
So, here we go, we have three kinds of sight which comprise understanding … foresight, insight, and hindsight. We, as the people of God, need to begin to, more diligently, employ our foresight and insight, with a good balance of hindsight. i believe it is important to perceive the common word in the three elements of understanding, which is “sight” or “vision”.
This is important: We need to have a vision of where we’re going, foresight, so we know how to be where we are, insight. More than ever, we need to have insight with God and ourselves, understanding what the vision inside and outside of ourselves means. How can we take action if we don’t understand what to do?
Another way to see “foresight” is when the scriptures use the word “providence”. Ah yea, now there’s a word to understand and God is the exclusive owner of providence in the universe. Oh sure, there’s lesser version among men, but the buck stops and the feet of Jesus because He has all the providence. In my life, some say, luck, i say providence. Quite literally providence means foresight, to consider in advance, sort of like having a provision made in advance of your arrival.
All through the O.T. it is easy to see how God is always working directly with us, upholding everything with, what i think of as fatherly care, guiding all our affairs to accomplish His plans, even to the degree of causing nature to be controlled by His purposeful order which sees to it that the divine ends are reached. He foresees what we think of as history, and appoints what or who He needs to in order to achieve His purposes. Because of this, it is wisdom for us to realize that, truly, our lives are in God’s hands, like it or not.
If we have a living relationship with Jesus Christ, then we are those who, by faith, live a life of communion with God and cannot help but know more of what is on his mind than other people who don’t know Him. Through Christ we have practical knowledge and wisdom to consider all circumstances and possible consequences. Oh that we would all be more circumspect.
Hosea 14:9 “Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent? Let him know them.” To say “let him understand these things”, means we employ foresight, insight, and hindsight, and to ask “Who is prudent” addresses the mental putting together of what is perceived, the act of connecting the dots so to speak. Oh, look, there’s a great definition of “prudent”, or one of several, all closely related to the other. “The mental putting together of what is perceived, the act of connecting the dots so to speak.”
We have lots of hindsight, we need more foresight and insight- we need insight into our hindsight, so we are able to put to work what we have learned, but we can’t get lost in hindsight. That would be like driving forward by looking in the rear-view mirror. Navigating by your rearview mirror doesn’t work, at all.
Too many, w-a-y too many people are stuck in hindsight. i mean, they often project their history into their future and call it the “present”. i believe we can safely say that what we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history. So, so many are stuck remembering all the things they didn’t do, shouldn’t have done, couldn’t have done, ought to have said but didn’t, etc, etc. If God says in Hebrews 8:12 “For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins I will remember no more”, if He doesn’t remember all our wrong in His hindsight, then who is it which continues to remind us of all our errors? We can’t be a saint AND a sinner, wheat and chaff both.
The vision of hindsight: The problem facing most people and businesses today is that it certainly seems most are driving using the rear window to navigate. They’re steering based on where they’ve been, and maybe, just maybe they occasionally catch a glimpse out the side windows for what’s happening to them in the now. They don’t seem to know where they’re driving, they can’t see the sharp turn in the road ahead, predominantly, believing their future is mostly defined by their past. Ha! Not! The front window on the car is large so as to have a good vision of where you’re going, foresight. The view through the front window encourages foresight and insight. It is true that hindsight is part of the picture, but really hindsight is only a small part of the vision God wants us to grasp.
Vision is about knowing where we’re going in order to know if we’re there, where ever “there” is, and even more vital, knowing if we’re off course or if we’re any closer to our goal. Philippians 3:14, “I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” To say we “press on toward” speaks loudly about going forward and looking forward. Do you have vision, one worth pressing forward about, and how close do you think you are to your prize? Remember: Eyes on the prize! Focus ahead.
When our vision of the Lord and His word are no longer performed with a singleness of eye, it is called, di-vision. We are riddled, from our government to the church, we are riddled with a multiplicity of vision – or di-vision. When people have split vision, divided loyalties, separated love, and a general lack of God-centered continuity, ladies and gentlemen, we have something called chaos and confusion….and boy-howdy does hell love to exploit those who are divided, split, separated, and disloyal.
The Lord, not the universe, not your spouse or boss, but the Lord alone gives us vision. It comes by dreams, concepts arising in our minds which could be called a “closed vision”, or sometimes, right in front of us in front of our eyes-– which would be called an “open vision”. i’d say most of the time, sight comes in the form of foresight and insight, like something surfacing in our minds… like a knowing that rises to the surface from deep waters. When that happens, pay attention! God is moving! We begin the road of insight by praying and asking Him to reveal what it’s all about. There are so many many believers who love to talk about their dreams and visions, but honestly, very few spend much time talking about what they did with it all, you know, the part where the insight is put into motion. The Lord wants us to participate WITH Him, not get all caught up in the “look what happened to me” part, like little children who live in a circus world and just walk around and marvel at the sights. We say, “Oh, oh, i had a dream!” Ok, well…What will you do with it? God is not speaking to us just so we can say “Wow” a lot.
Insight is illumination, those “Ah-ha!” moments.
Most folks love to entertain the idea of having a vision, and we love to picture ourselves as “seeing” amazing and wonderful things, and often with ourselves being the center of pleasant, and uplifting visions. But that’s not always the case. In Daniel 5, the scene opens with the king making merry with all his pals, laughing and drinking. Then the King did something terrible, he called for the chalices, plates and bowls of gold and silver to be brought, which his father had taken from the Lord’s temple in Jerusalem. Daniel 5:4-6 reads, “As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone. Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lamp stand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way.”
Yep, i’d say this vision, an open vision at that, wasn’t going so well for the King. Can you imagine being so shaken at seeing something that your knees knocked and, as the King James says, “the joints of his loins were loosed”? The guy very literally was coming apart. In the end they called for Daniel to interpret. They said that Daniel was a man of “insight, intelligence and wisdom,” and in vs 12 Daniel was said to have “a keen mind, knowledge and understanding, and also the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles and solve difficult problems.” God had given it to Daniel to perceive the inner nature of things, or see into a situation. Daniel was a man of “insight” and it was called “understanding”. Listen, if we DO believe sound doctrine is cover to cover, yet we don’t believe God speaks to us anymore, doesn’t do miracles, and doesn’t employ the gifts of the Spirit, then all i can conclude is some of us are reading a redacted Bible. Think about that.
Do you have insight? If you know Jesus it is one of His attributes He shares with you, simply by having a relationship with Christ. Anyone who tells you God doesn’t give visions, heal, or speak to men anymore has a foundational lie in their pockets.
i think more than a few of us actually have the gifts of “foresight” and “insight”, but more often than not, we don’t trust what we see, so we declare we have “no sight” rather than risk being wrong with our insight.
When most of us were children, if we accidently knocked over the milk at the dinner table, we were punished. If we knocked over the milk intentionally, we were punished more. Our conclusion was that no matter what, we were going to get punished and the best thing to do was simply not risk anything. i believe the Lord is calling us to risk with Him, to come out of hiding and risk, and maybe, just maybe what we’re seeing and discerning could possibly be correct.
We’ve got to stop throwing the baby out with the bath water. We’ve been trained to not risk, and i believe by far and large we are a nation of none risk-takers … as a nation, and as the Body of Christ, that really needs to change.
Foresight – the perception of options before they happen. When God gives us foresight, then we need His insight to perceive the inner nature of what we see, and follow after what it is we have perceived.
Proverbs 2:2-5 “turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.”
Let me add a little bit of caution: If any of us thinks that because we have foresight we suddenly are qualified to give ourselves a title, (buzzer) we…are….wrong. Insight and foresight are a privilege, and if we give ourselves a title and declare ourselves, our privilege becomes pretense. It is an adulterous thing to have a gift from God and and use it to entitle ourselves for our own glory… Oh, and on a side note, if we think we must have sex in order to commit adultery, (buzzer) we … are… wrong. The Bible says in Revelation 19:1 “… glory, honor and power belong to the Lord our God!” Do we realize how many people have foresight and when no one gives them any credit, they get offended and quit? C’mon, that’s what silly little children do but it happens and all too often it’s simply too easy to just go in your house and quietly shut the door. Honor and glory belong to God, and the Lord will honor who He honors. Proverbs 27:2 “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.”
Foresight – i suppose firstly, we must admit the Lord has opened our eyes and we have witnessed something in the distance. i believe there are “spiritual binoculars” for any and all believers who are brave to look and see. You’ve heard of having ears to hear? i’d like to add “having eyes to see” also.
We must decide within ourselves that foresight is ok. If foresight and insight are NOT ok, but only hindsight is ok, that means all we ever perceive is our past with no view of the now or future as God has laid it out. Aren’t you interested in what God sees that’s ahead?
If God said foresight and insight are ok, then what is our problem? Is it that only “brand name” people have it? Nooo. Do we feel unworthy of vision? Is it that “others may, but I may not?” That is propagating the victim mentality and we must stop the momentum of our victim-hood.
We can’t continue to read a redacted Bible, jumping over the parts which make us uncomfortable, if we ignore the bells and pomegranates at the hem of the priests robes, if we cut out the giftings God has given us, as revealed in 1Cor12, Rom11:9 and other books, we have denied ourselves the full bounty of our amazing, and super-natural King.
Do you have the courage to admit maybe you do have some God given foresight, and sometimes you really do have insight about this or that? Of course, we must check ourselves carefully, but all too often the church says, “Watch Out! Be careful! Just – Don’t!” They tell us, “Ohhh, you better be careful what you pray for!” or “Have you been trained? Are you qualified?”, or “What if you’re wrong?”
Ok, and what if you do get it wrong, ‘cause i can assure you it will happen? We forgive ourselves, and simply, try again. You know, i fully believe the way we get good discernment is by learning from employing poor discernment. Similarly, i’m also convinced that we learn to make good decisions by having learned from making poor decision. “Learned” is a key word there. The Lord doesn’t fault anyone for trying and failing, but He does have a problem with those who fail to try. If we know the Lord our God loves us and cares for us, why do we think He’s going to punish us if we have audacious faith? That’s what earthly parents have done maybe, but God is not them and that’s not what He does. Risk with God and be audacious with your prayers. Risk with God and open your eyes to see. Risk with God to find His gifts in you…be audacious and at least try.
These are the days that if you will ask Him, He will answer, and He’s not going to whack you because you had the nerve to believe Him and trust Him. i believe you’ll find God has gifted you with foresight, insight, and hindsight, it is there. Be brave my family, be brave and risk with God.
If we are not practiced at Godly things, then we are becoming practiced at worldly things.
Our sight and faculty, that’s foresight, insight, and hindsight, they are three parts of understanding we must practice to make perfect. Take a chance and risk with God, make it your procedure and form.
What is your practice, in the late hours, when it’s just you and God? What is your habit in the evening? My friends, don’t let your eyes get used to the dark.
i’m Social Porter with Living In His Name Ministries, thank you for coming by this evening here at Outposts, broadcast semi-live from the late evening cascading banks of the Okluhwahhah River, where the trees gently lean down, and every evening is pleasant.
Enjoy the remainder of your evening, let Jesus give you the rest your heart needs. Let Him occupy your eyes and ears as you go your way. Be strong and courageous, lift your hands, and thank God for His goodness towards us this week. Drive carefully. Don’t forget God cares about the details of our lives. You know, the Lord has a great deal He’d like to talk to us about. Like i said, Think About It and Amen.