A man without a vision is a man without a future
"Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. "-Proverbs 29:18.
In the first place, the word "vision" used here has to do with the Word of God. Where there is no Word of God, where there is no message of life, the people perish, is the primary interpretation of this passage. This passage is used just in that manner in other places in the Bible. For instance, In I Samuel 3:1 we read, “Now the young man Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no frequent vision.”My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hosea 4:6)
Any successful endeavor requires a vision. The original Hebrew word for vision is, i.e. a dream, revelation, or oracle. This word appears thirty five times in the Bible (Old Testament). There are over one hundred listings of several other Hebrew words in the Old Testament referencing vision, or revelation. Therefore, in general vision in the Old Testament refers to a direct revelation from God, either in person or in a dream. The word “visions means the ability to see things that are invisible.” in other words seeing things through God's Eyes.
Helen Keller was asked “What would be worse than being born blind?” She replied, “The only thing worse than being blind is to have sight without vision.”
Helen Adams Keller was born a healthy child in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880...When she was born, she could see and hear, but lost both abilities when she was 18 months old due to a high fever from an unknown illness. At the time she went blind and deaf; few people believed there was any hope that such a person would ever achieve anything significant in life. However, Helen proved that the deaf-blind can learn, graduate from college, write books, and affect change in the world. Helen was famous from the age of 8 until her death in 1968. The Story of My Life is Helen Keller’s account of her triumph over deafness and blindness. Popularized by the stage play and movie The Miracle Worker, Keller’s story has become a symbol of hope for people all over the world.
Her wide range of political, cultural, and intellectual interests and activities ensured that she knew people in all spheres of life. She counted leading personalities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries among her friends and acquaintances. These included Eleanor Roosevelt, Will Rogers, Albert Einstein, Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Charlie Chaplin, John F. Kennedy, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Katharine Cornell, and Jo Davidson to name but a few. She was honored around the globe and garnered many awards. She received honorary doctoral degrees from Temple and Harvard Universities in the United States; Glasgow and Berlin Universities in Europe; Delhi University in India; and Witwatersrand University in South Africa. She was respected and admired by presidents, prime ministers, actors, writers, and especially by the blind and deaf people of the world. She traveled the world making speeches, created organizations for the blind, and in support of free speech, starred in a documentary for which she won an Oscar, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In fact, her determination and remarkable memory made her an excellent scholar.
In a world of injustice and poverty, where women the disabled and the marginalized class were effectively disenfranchised, Helen railed against the inequality she found. A woman of deep personal religious convictions, a suffragette and a socialist, she fought against inequality and the abject poverty which even today makes millions blind the world over, through diseases which are entirely preventable. Through her work, Helen drew attention to the people who had often been overlooked. She became almost a household name by the time she died at the age of 88. Helen Keller wasn’t the only disabled person who succeeded in living life to the full. Many more have since, and will no doubt continue to. She was, however, a giant inspiration for millions the world over; millions who are deaf, blind, both, or neither. One of her familiar quote is “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart”
“A man without a vision is a man without a future. A man without a future will always return to his past."
Solomon, in his wisdom and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote, In Proverbs 29:18 “where there is no vision the people perish”."The NKJ translates it, "Where there is no revelation the people cast off restraint..." Meaning, if people don't know what to do,
they don't do anything or they do their own thing and become ungovernable, deprived of moral restraints and cannot be reined in.
When people have no divine guidance they rebel against the will of God and commit themselves to the baser and evil things of life. George Barna, author of the book The Power of Vision, defines vision as, a clear mental image of a preferable future, imparted by God to His chosen servants, based upon an accurate understanding of God, self and circumstances. People with a vision know where God wants them to go, know what God wants them to do, and know that God will empower them to obtain the vision that He gives. Without a vision from the Lord the people perish! Having a vision is more than just looking on the bright side. It is looking on God’s side. Many people have chosen to ignore divine guidance and live a lifestyle based on greed, lust, selfishness, egotism, and improper pride. As a consequence they have been living by sight alone, and that's one reason they have all kinds of physical problems- muscle tension, migraines, high blood pressure, heart disease, ulcers, tumors, and so on.
If you are operating by sight, you see the calamity and complexity all around you. Sight without vision is dangerous because it has no hope. Sight is the ability to see things as they are, and vision is the ability to see things as they could be. Life is so full of depressing things that you need to learn to live by vision and see with the eyes of faith. Vision is the ability to see things as they should be. Even though we know that the discouraging things we see and hear are temporary, they still can distress and depress us. We must keep our visions constantly before us, however, because the visions in our hearts are greater than our environments. God gave us vision so we would not have to live by what we see. Bible affirms that “For we live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)
The believer not only is well assured by faith that there is another and a happy life after this is ended, but he has good hope, through grace, of heaven as a resting-place. In our Father's house there are many mansions, whose Builder and Maker is God. The happiness of the future state is what God has prepared for those that love him: everlasting habitations, not like the earthly tabernacles, the poor cottages of clay, in which our souls now dwell; that are decaying, whose foundations are in the dust. Faith is for this world, and sight is for the other world. It is our duty, and it will be our interest, to walk by faith, till we live by sight.
The word translated "vision" refers to the will and purpose of God being made known, "inspired guidance."God has not left us without inspired guidance. He has given us His divinely inspired word, the Bible. Where it is not known and/or applied, it has a natural consequence. It is summed up in the word "perish." The meaning of the Hebrew word for "perish" means "let loose, run wild." It was a term used of a woman with long hair, letting it down in a wind. It was a term used of casting off restraint. That is, resenting and resisting authority. “Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint; but blessed is the one who heeds wisdom’s instruction” (NIV)
People with vision possess two things: they know where they are going and they are able to persuade others to follow. Your vision comes from God, it is not something you thought overnight; Vision gives purpose and adds meaning to our life (Phil. 1:21). Vision applies to all individuals, community, Nation, churches, organizations. People who don’t have plans for the future are planning to fail! A Godly VISION is absolutely essential to successful living. Your vision will help you have a sense of direction and fulfillment as you work your way to your dreams.
Faith is vision and vision is seeing a worthy possibility before it actually takes place. Heb 11:1 says: Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Those with vision see possibilities where others see impossibilities.
To fulfill a God given vision you must take the limits off your thinking. Vision starts from within! Look behind you, what have you learned? Look ahead of you what is the big picture? Look above yourself, what is God expecting of you? Great visions are bigger than one person. Look beside you, what resources are available to you? A vision should be greater than the person who has it. Vision is more than just a mental image of the future. Vision sees a better, more desirable future and provides direction and fuels motivation for its achievement.
Fulfilling Your God given vision is your glory. God gave vision to you, only you can fulfill your vision. Vision is what we see, but it is also the way in which we see. Vision is the lens that interprets the events of our life, the way we view people and our concept of God. If we have a scratch on our glasses, it may seem like everybody around us has scratches too, but the problem actually lies with us because our vision is impaired. Jesus said that our eyes are the windows of our heart. Paul prayed that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened. In other words, we perceive with our eyes but we see with our hearts. Our minds receive images from our eyes but our heart interprets these images. If our heart becomes bitter, jealous, hurt or in some way infected, the lens of our heart is distorted. What we perceive is happening and what is really going on could be two completely different things. This is why Bible says “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23)
JESUS CHRIST had a clear vision of what His vision and mission was. As a result, His life had purpose, meaning, and fulfillment in that He achieved His mission on earth. Jesus said, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32). The word truth means reality. Jesus is saying, you will understand what is real and that will free you. The way we view life can feel and look real, or make perfect sense, but still not be real at all. Have you ever watched a movie and gotten totally into it? You experience all the emotions of real life. You may even leave the theater still "feeling" the movie, but it was just a movie? It was never real. The truth is: we see what we believe to be true. Another way to put it is, if you have the wrong pretext you will misunderstand the context. Having a revelation of what is real will deliver us from a life of torment that virtual reality often causes.
One of the reasons so many drift though life and end up on the rocks of devastation is because they have no vision. They have sight, which misleads them to believe they are making progress because they can see the movement all around them, but that movement is not progress. It’s merely movement. Progress comes not from sight, but from vision. It’s too bad there’s not a tool to check our vision like there is to check our site. You may have 20/20 sight, but what is your vision? To have vision is such a blessing…to see things and people as they can be not what it or they are at the moment is truly a gift. I believe we all have the gift; it just takes effort to learn to apply it in our lives. God’s gift to you is your potential. Your gift back to God is what you do with that potential. Revisit, revamp and renew the vision for your life. And let’s not be a person who has sight but no vision!!!
The Bible is very clear that "without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews 11:6). If you try to function in any other way than faith, you will malfunction. That is why worry is ungodly and fear makes your vision short-circuit. You were never meant to be afraid. Jesus was filled with faith, and He was the calmest person on earth. He slept soundly in the middle of a storm. When His frightened disciples woke Him up, He asked them, "Do you still have no faith?" (Mark 4:40). He was telling them, "If you have faith you will be able to sleep during a storm, as well." Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision.
