May 1, 2024 • 19 mins
In this insightful episode of 'Hope And Him Today' with Gary Miller, we excavate the treasure trove of wisdom found in the Scriptures to aid you in formulating a captivating vision for your life. Based on the Biblical verse, "write the vision and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it", Gary shares valuable insights elaborated with personal experiences and lucid practical examples, emphasizing the power of a clear and compelling vision.
This discussion transcends different areas of your life, from your personal relationships to your career. Gary Miller accentuates the importance of having a precise vision for your life that can direct you towards your much-anticipated outcomes. We compare the importance of having a vision in life to cooking dinner, presenting unexpected yet intriguing viewpoints. Listen as Gary also underlines the necessity of writing your vision down, explaining how it breathes life into your vision, etches it into your memory, and accentuates its effectiveness.
The episode serves as a catalyst that could stimulate you to define, refine, or clarify your life vision. Gary Miller urges us to join a mission that expands beyond our individuality, hinting at living our lives tied to the rhythm of the universe, fostering purpose-driven existences.
We also probe deeper into how clarity improves familial dynamics by dispelling misunderstandings, and understand how unclear expectations could create chaos. The episode further emphasizes how a hazy vision may lead to negative emotions, thereby affecting our relationships and well-being. Discover strategies to avoid these pitfalls and to keep distractions at bay, ensuring a clear path towards a purpose-oriented life. Learn to formulate a vision so crystal-clear that it can be encapsulated in a single phrase, thereby channelizing your energies in the right direction.
Whether you're trying to understand your life's purpose, seeking clarity amidst daily chaos, or aiming to nurture healthier relationships, this episode could be your stepping stone towards living a more meaningful life. Tune in for a timely overhaul of your life vision through the light of scripture, and start steering your life towards order, purpose, and fulfilment.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hey there, friends. Gary Miller here. This is Hope and Him Today. Good to have you with us.
So this episode is landing a day after our April run of episodes.
It was supposed to get up on the last day of the month, but technicalities.
(00:23):
Sometimes the machines don't work the way you want the machines to work, but we're here today.
And I'm excited to be. We're going to drop this as the last of that series of
messages we were loading up in April. You know, we're going to take a little hiatus.
But I changed up the plot a little bit here and I was in my own study and had
(00:47):
prepared a lesson for my family.
And when I got to talking about it and got to preparing it, it occurred to me,
I said, you know, this will probably be a good one for the podcast. cast.
The Bible says, and you're probably very familiar with this verse from the Old
Testament, it says, write the vision and make it plain upon tables,
that he may run that readeth it.
(01:09):
And I, over the years, if you've been around preaching, preaching,
you know, and by that, I mean, you've, you know, you've been in the room for
some word of faith guys or some,
Fiery Baptist guys, you know, people who are kind of slinging it by the ribbon,
walking around and really shouting.
And I can tell you that you've probably heard this scripture preached in a variety of ways.
(01:37):
Obviously, we have to be careful when we take something out of the Old Testament
like this and purely make it a practical application situation,
which I'm going to do here today because I think it is very practical.
But we also, I have to be a good Bible student and tell you that this is part
of a larger story here that context does matter.
(02:03):
And so I don't think it's either or. I don't think you only have to read strictly
to the confines of the context and not have any practical application in your,
current life right now, right? Like modern day.
But I do think you need to have both. So go through and read.
There's only three chapters in the book that this comes from.
So it's read for context, read for understanding.
(02:27):
It's important as you study the whole counsel of truth, but it's also good to
go, wait a minute, what are the nuggets that I can actually apply?
And I think this is obviously very applicable, right? The vision, make it plain.
I wonder today what your vision is in your life and not just some grandiose
vision like, hey, what's the
vision of your life? You know, what are you passionate about or whatever?
(02:48):
Now? I mean specifically in the areas That matter most to you. What is your vision?
What is your vision for your marriage? What is your vision for your kids?
And that's probably if you got more than one kid, it's it's individual things
right individual visions that you have for them What are your what's your vision for your?
(03:13):
Your work, your profession, your vocation? What is your vision for your spiritual
walk, your spiritual path?
If you are involved in ministry to some capacity, you're a worship leader,
you're a pastor, you're a bishop, you're whatever.
What is your vision for that?
Now, when I ask that, most of us have a moment of pause, and then we kind of
(03:37):
rationalize it to ourselves by forming a sort of nebulous idea of what we think
we're trying to go after.
But if we're honest, we probably lack a ton of specificity when it comes to defining our vision.
(03:59):
You put in just the street or just the city of the destination in your GPS,
PS, you will not get to a specific destination.
You might get close, but you won't get to the specific place, right?
If you don't put all the ingredients into the mix when you're making the meal,
(04:19):
you might get close, but you aren't going to have the exact meal that you might
be looking for, and or you might mess it up to the point where it doesn't taste very good, right?
Without a clear use of the ingredients, you can make a mess in the kitchen,
make a mess of the the meal when the whole experience goes sideways right now
i'm not trying to equate you know cooking dinner with the important matters
(04:41):
of life but you get the illustration do you have a vision.
I would suggest that most of us do not. Or if we do, it hasn't really been specific.
When we look at the verse and we really break this down, first of all,
there's this idea, have we ever documented what our vision is?
(05:03):
It's one thing to think about it. It's another thing to write it. Why?
We do some of our most important things when we actually write them.
Even if you're doing it virtually nowadays, if you're going to e-sign a document,
most of the the time you still got to put your hand on the mouse and like manually
try to sign it in that little box, right?
You sign contracts in person. You have to take a pen out still with all the
(05:24):
modern things and we still have to sign the paper, right? Why?
There's something to writing things down. Even if you are a digital person and
you use 19 apps and perfectly synchronize them and your phone looks like a NASA project, that's great.
But I think you would still concede there's something to writing it down.
(05:47):
I was recently meeting with one of my physicians. This was about six months
ago. As a matter of fact, it just reminded me it had been six months.
And we're meeting virtually to have this discussion. And we're looking at labs
that have already been printed out. And this is a very digital world.
They're looking at my blood pressure log, which is all uploaded digitally on
an app in real time. Like we've got all that.
(06:09):
But yet while I was talking, both the doctor and myself, when he was talking,
we're writing down notes. Why?
It mattered. It had significance and we didn't want to forget it.
One of the benefits of the first part of this verse, write the vision,
is that it gives what we're talking about significance and it helps us to embed
(06:32):
it into our minds in a different way.
So have you actually written down what it is that you have a vision for?
And then you go to the next part, which I think is probably even more important.
Write the vision, make it plain.
I would suggest to you, if you cannot write down your vision in a sentence on
(06:52):
one side of a three by five card, you are not clear on your vision.
I remember when we first started Derogate Baptist Church in San Antonio,
and we were making our tracks because we would, you know, we would take those.
The idea was you would leave them on doors or door knock soul winning,
and you'd invite people to church to come to the meetings.
(07:13):
This is when we were just meeting in our living room on Sunday mornings.
We'd kind of clear, move all the furniture out of the way, set up the folding chairs.
There was a podium. I mean, it was pretty, pretty crunchy, you know,
do-it-yourself kind of churching in the beginning.
But I remember we had this like trifold soul winning kind of church invitation
(07:33):
brochure, right? Logo on the front.
Still the best logo we've ever done for anything that we've worked on.
It's amazing. The first things you do when you didn't have a clue and you just hired somebody,
you didn't and overthink it and you got the right vendor
and they made the logo by far the best
logo was the original narrow gate baptist church logo loved it so we
(07:55):
had the logo on the front and that was great and then we we had our little bit
of information about the church you know so for us you know old-fashioned king
james you know jesus preaching you know independent fundamental
Baptist church, whatever address, phone number, email.
(08:16):
And then we had our, our Romans road was kind of on the backside.
But then I remember looking at that and that all looked well,
because we'd modeled it after some churches that were similar to ours in the
sort of independent Baptist movement.
And they were kind of our, our models. Cause they had done it successfully.
They'd started in the living room and then expand that out from there.
(08:38):
So we're just, we were just modeling what they were doing.
I remember printing the samples, right?
Crystal and I were, I was in the Air Force at the time, and she'd come on base to meet me for lunch.
And we'd meet at this little park on base there at Lackland Air Force Base.
And I remember sitting at that kitchen, kitchen table, picnic table,
(09:00):
rather. And we're outside and it's, you know, great vibe.
And I remember looking at it and telling her, I'm like, okay, this is all true.
Through, but have we told people just simply what we're about,
you know, just, and the answer of course was no, there was a lot of information,
(09:20):
but it wasn't exactly playing both what we were and what we wanted them to do
with this thing that we just handed them or left on their door when we were attracting,
you know, sort of door to door or whatever, or leaving it at a,
you know, leaving it at a restaurant table at the Cracker Barrel,
which we did, whatever. It didn't matter.
What did we want to say about who we were and what specifically did we want
(09:45):
them to do? Were we being plain?
And I remember we kind of rewrote the whole thing because the idea is I wanted
to be plain. I wanted it to be simple and that we understood it.
Do you have a simple vision for these key areas of your life?
I have found, and I don't know if you have found the same thing,
the most knowledgeable people I have ever encountered in any area of life,
(10:07):
literally any area of life, marketing, sales,
parenting, ministry, preaching, CrossFit, cooking, teaching, whatever.
The most knowledgeable people can very, very easily, simply,
plainly explain the thing.
(10:29):
A real knowledge and understanding of something, they can make it very simple to understand.
The people that don't understand it so well, when they explain it,
they need like nine whiteboards, seven hours, multiple sessions, and like 16 handouts.
It's so complicated.
It's one of the ways, and we talk about ministry, and we used to do it all the time with preachers.
(10:51):
You can tell the difference between the person that's really well-prepared and
knows it versus the person that's not well-prepared and doesn't know it very
well is how simply they can explain it.
Those old gray-haired saint preachers, man, I tell you what,
mountain preachers. I mean, they would just say it plainly and simply.
(11:13):
And why? Because they had the smoke of battle on them, the smoke of experience.
They knew it. Get someone pretending to be Preacher Boy up there and like it
turns into a physics equation rocket science algorithm that nobody gets.
Is your vision plain? So the first question is, do you have a vision?
(11:34):
Second question is, is it specific enough and plain enough that you can actually understand it?
And the people around you that are partnering with you to help you succeed in
that vision, that they can understand it.
I think this takes shape. It takes shape in a lot of places.
I think it does, especially in the family. I tell you, it's just carried over into 2024.
(11:58):
I'm learning so much about family life, both as a husband and as a father.
I think largely because I'm actually paying attention right really trying to
improve and in trying to improve you often realize how much you really have to improve yeah.
But one of the things that I'm really working on actively in my marriage,
(12:20):
really working on actively with my children is, are we being plain?
Is it simple? Do we really understand what it is that the expectations are,
what it is that our vision is that we're focused on together and individually?
Do we really understand it? Has it been broken down in a way that's very, very clear?
(12:45):
I don't know about you, but I find so much of the disorder and friction and
getting rubbed wrong and all the stuff that can happen inside of a family, inside of a marriage,
has so much to do with expectations that just were not clear on both sides.
And the enemy of clarity is busyness and noise and distraction.
(13:09):
And so we really have to almost get people by the shoulders and they almost
have to get us by the shoulders.
Stop us, look at us, make sure we're totally paying attention to say,
hey, did you hear what I just said?
Did you hear or do we understand where we're going? Where are you going?
Where am I going? Like, we really need to do this.
We have to understand. We have to be clear.
(13:32):
This verse is a voice of clarity. It's a verse of clarity. Write the vision, make it plain.
Write it down. You're actually going to have to think about this and actually put it to paper.
Make it plain. You're going to have to reduce it to sort of the lowest common
denominator, whether it's you're talking about your health or you're talking
about your marriage or you're talking about what you're doing in your business
(13:53):
or sales or marketing or whatever. Getting new clients doesn't matter.
Is it clear? Now, here's the part I want to close here. I hope you'll give these
some thought in the secret place, because boy, I tell you, it's relevant.
Write the vision, make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it.
You want to progress? You've got to have a vision that's simple enough for you
(14:16):
to understand that you've actually written down that you can refer to.
That's going to help you run your race.
Now, we're all going to run the race at our own pace, but that's going to help
you run the race. because you've got a destination.
You know what in the world you're working on. So many of us have no idea.
If you want a recipe for frustration, don't have any real clarity on what you're
(14:40):
working on, yet have a life that is busy as all get out.
And I promise you, you will get frustrated and more frustrated and more frustrated
and more frustrated. Then you'll get resentful. Then you'll get angry.
Then there'll be contention and there'll be arguments. disagreements and then
from there the whole thing's falling apart marriages
are fractured relationships with kids are jacked up
(15:02):
the whole thing happens because we're meandering please
be on the lookout for busy without purpose and our culture loves to keep us
busy without purpose here's a slack message here's an email here's a text here's
a notification from facebook the school sends out 17 emails a week about this
and that and it's hat day and bring in this and in the PTA and the other thing,
(15:25):
and there's an assembly and the thing, inspections due on the car and this bill's done.
I mean, we are just bombarded with busyness.
And if you stay busy long enough without purpose, purpose is just a defined
vision that you are working towards.
If you do that long enough, you are going to be in deep, deep trouble.
(15:49):
Some of you are there right now.
So how do we fix that? How do we take this verse and actually do something with it today?
Number one, I think we need to sit down, journal and pen in hand.
It doesn't have to be fancy. You can literally buy a spiral notebook from the
dollar store for 99 cents. Really, it doesn't have to be slick.
And we need to write down, what are the key areas in my life that I think need
(16:14):
a vision? That's number one.
What are the key areas that actually need a vision? Not everything needs a vision.
I don't need a vision for if I'm putting strawberry cream cheese or regular
cream cheese on my bagel, but I bet you I do need a vision for,
hey, what is my vision for my nutrition,
my health, my tracking, and what I'm doing there for those of us that need to worry about that?
(16:35):
So you don't. So those of you that are out there that are elite triathletes
and crossfitters and are flipping tires and have perfect blood pressure and
don't have to deal with that, okay, well, you might have something else that you need a vision in.
What in my life needs a vision? Number two, write the vision for it.
Three, write the vision that it's so plain and simple, I can summarize it in
(16:57):
a sentence on one side of a three by five card.
If it takes you nine pages to write that vision, friend, you don't have a vision.
You have a lot of ideas, some of which may be amazing, but you do not have enough
focus. That GPS will not get you to that destination.
You've got to reduce the fraction to write it, to make it plain and simple.
(17:18):
Once you've written in that, then we get to the hows. How am I going to do it?
I don't have time to teach that today, but the how is scheduling.
The how is resources in things or people that are going to help you do and get to your vision.
Very few visions that are worth anything are going to be done as a solo sport.
(17:41):
You're going to need a gang. You're going to need a band. You're going to need
people to roll with you you're gonna need people to help you i we we shared
the narrowgate story earlier the biggest struggle narrowgate had early on was
i was trying to do all of it myself.
Bad idea, right? For those of you thinking about church plants,
that's a bad, bad idea, okay?
Take it from someone who messed it up for a long time, all right?
(18:04):
So then we think about the hows. The hows are the stuff we'll need,
the people that are going to help us, and scheduling a life that supports it.
That's what I think we can do because with that, then we can run after what
we're doing. We've got the endurance.
We've got the engine. We've got the fuel in the engine to go after these things that we want to do.
(18:25):
And whatever they are, I think this truth is applicable in every area of our
life, whatever our goals may be.
And provided that they obviously don't violate the word of God,
we're on safe ground and God will bless it when we align ourselves with him
and we get clear on these things.
Would you give that some thought in the secret place today?
Hey, it was good to have you here today. Great to be with you for all of that second part.
(18:47):
A little more than the second half of April. If you haven't been out to iTunes
yet or Apple Podcast, and left us a review, please do that.
Five stars, write a sentence or two. Nothing helps us get found more than that.
And we'll be back in a little bit with some more content and pressing on from
here. Get to the secret place. I know Jesus will have some.
Music.
Hey there, friends. Gary Miller here. This is Hope and Him Today. Good to have you with us.
So this episode is landing a day after our April run of episodes.
It was supposed to get up on the last day of the month, but technicalities.
(00:23):
Sometimes the machines don't work the way you want the machines to work, but we're here today.
And I'm excited to be. We're going to drop this as the last of that series of
messages we were loading up in April. You know, we're going to take a little hiatus.
But I changed up the plot a little bit here and I was in my own study and had
(00:47):
prepared a lesson for my family.
And when I got to talking about it and got to preparing it, it occurred to me,
I said, you know, this will probably be a good one for the podcast. cast.
The Bible says, and you're probably very familiar with this verse from the Old
Testament, it says, write the vision and make it plain upon tables,
that he may run that readeth it.
(01:09):
And I, over the years, if you've been around preaching, preaching,
you know, and by that, I mean, you've, you know, you've been in the room for
some word of faith guys or some,
Fiery Baptist guys, you know, people who are kind of slinging it by the ribbon,
walking around and really shouting.
And I can tell you that you've probably heard this scripture preached in a variety of ways.
(01:37):
Obviously, we have to be careful when we take something out of the Old Testament
like this and purely make it a practical application situation,
which I'm going to do here today because I think it is very practical.
But we also, I have to be a good Bible student and tell you that this is part
of a larger story here that context does matter.
(02:03):
And so I don't think it's either or. I don't think you only have to read strictly
to the confines of the context and not have any practical application in your,
current life right now, right? Like modern day.
But I do think you need to have both. So go through and read.
There's only three chapters in the book that this comes from.
So it's read for context, read for understanding.
(02:27):
It's important as you study the whole counsel of truth, but it's also good to
go, wait a minute, what are the nuggets that I can actually apply?
And I think this is obviously very applicable, right? The vision, make it plain.
I wonder today what your vision is in your life and not just some grandiose
vision like, hey, what's the
vision of your life? You know, what are you passionate about or whatever?
(02:48):
Now? I mean specifically in the areas That matter most to you. What is your vision?
What is your vision for your marriage? What is your vision for your kids?
And that's probably if you got more than one kid, it's it's individual things
right individual visions that you have for them What are your what's your vision for your?
(03:13):
Your work, your profession, your vocation? What is your vision for your spiritual
walk, your spiritual path?
If you are involved in ministry to some capacity, you're a worship leader,
you're a pastor, you're a bishop, you're whatever.
What is your vision for that?
Now, when I ask that, most of us have a moment of pause, and then we kind of
(03:37):
rationalize it to ourselves by forming a sort of nebulous idea of what we think
we're trying to go after.
But if we're honest, we probably lack a ton of specificity when it comes to defining our vision.
(03:59):
You put in just the street or just the city of the destination in your GPS,
PS, you will not get to a specific destination.
You might get close, but you won't get to the specific place, right?
If you don't put all the ingredients into the mix when you're making the meal,
(04:19):
you might get close, but you aren't going to have the exact meal that you might
be looking for, and or you might mess it up to the point where it doesn't taste very good, right?
Without a clear use of the ingredients, you can make a mess in the kitchen,
make a mess of the the meal when the whole experience goes sideways right now
i'm not trying to equate you know cooking dinner with the important matters
(04:41):
of life but you get the illustration do you have a vision.
I would suggest that most of us do not. Or if we do, it hasn't really been specific.
When we look at the verse and we really break this down, first of all,
there's this idea, have we ever documented what our vision is?
(05:03):
It's one thing to think about it. It's another thing to write it. Why?
We do some of our most important things when we actually write them.
Even if you're doing it virtually nowadays, if you're going to e-sign a document,
most of the the time you still got to put your hand on the mouse and like manually
try to sign it in that little box, right?
You sign contracts in person. You have to take a pen out still with all the
(05:24):
modern things and we still have to sign the paper, right? Why?
There's something to writing things down. Even if you are a digital person and
you use 19 apps and perfectly synchronize them and your phone looks like a NASA project, that's great.
But I think you would still concede there's something to writing it down.
(05:47):
I was recently meeting with one of my physicians. This was about six months
ago. As a matter of fact, it just reminded me it had been six months.
And we're meeting virtually to have this discussion. And we're looking at labs
that have already been printed out. And this is a very digital world.
They're looking at my blood pressure log, which is all uploaded digitally on
an app in real time. Like we've got all that.
(06:09):
But yet while I was talking, both the doctor and myself, when he was talking,
we're writing down notes. Why?
It mattered. It had significance and we didn't want to forget it.
One of the benefits of the first part of this verse, write the vision,
is that it gives what we're talking about significance and it helps us to embed
(06:32):
it into our minds in a different way.
So have you actually written down what it is that you have a vision for?
And then you go to the next part, which I think is probably even more important.
Write the vision, make it plain.
I would suggest to you, if you cannot write down your vision in a sentence on
(06:52):
one side of a three by five card, you are not clear on your vision.
I remember when we first started Derogate Baptist Church in San Antonio,
and we were making our tracks because we would, you know, we would take those.
The idea was you would leave them on doors or door knock soul winning,
and you'd invite people to church to come to the meetings.
(07:13):
This is when we were just meeting in our living room on Sunday mornings.
We'd kind of clear, move all the furniture out of the way, set up the folding chairs.
There was a podium. I mean, it was pretty, pretty crunchy, you know,
do-it-yourself kind of churching in the beginning.
But I remember we had this like trifold soul winning kind of church invitation
(07:33):
brochure, right? Logo on the front.
Still the best logo we've ever done for anything that we've worked on.
It's amazing. The first things you do when you didn't have a clue and you just hired somebody,
you didn't and overthink it and you got the right vendor
and they made the logo by far the best
logo was the original narrow gate baptist church logo loved it so we
(07:55):
had the logo on the front and that was great and then we we had our little bit
of information about the church you know so for us you know old-fashioned king
james you know jesus preaching you know independent fundamental
Baptist church, whatever address, phone number, email.
(08:16):
And then we had our, our Romans road was kind of on the backside.
But then I remember looking at that and that all looked well,
because we'd modeled it after some churches that were similar to ours in the
sort of independent Baptist movement.
And they were kind of our, our models. Cause they had done it successfully.
They'd started in the living room and then expand that out from there.
(08:38):
So we're just, we were just modeling what they were doing.
I remember printing the samples, right?
Crystal and I were, I was in the Air Force at the time, and she'd come on base to meet me for lunch.
And we'd meet at this little park on base there at Lackland Air Force Base.
And I remember sitting at that kitchen, kitchen table, picnic table,
(09:00):
rather. And we're outside and it's, you know, great vibe.
And I remember looking at it and telling her, I'm like, okay, this is all true.
Through, but have we told people just simply what we're about,
you know, just, and the answer of course was no, there was a lot of information,
(09:20):
but it wasn't exactly playing both what we were and what we wanted them to do
with this thing that we just handed them or left on their door when we were attracting,
you know, sort of door to door or whatever, or leaving it at a,
you know, leaving it at a restaurant table at the Cracker Barrel,
which we did, whatever. It didn't matter.
What did we want to say about who we were and what specifically did we want
(09:45):
them to do? Were we being plain?
And I remember we kind of rewrote the whole thing because the idea is I wanted
to be plain. I wanted it to be simple and that we understood it.
Do you have a simple vision for these key areas of your life?
I have found, and I don't know if you have found the same thing,
the most knowledgeable people I have ever encountered in any area of life,
(10:07):
literally any area of life, marketing, sales,
parenting, ministry, preaching, CrossFit, cooking, teaching, whatever.
The most knowledgeable people can very, very easily, simply,
plainly explain the thing.
(10:29):
A real knowledge and understanding of something, they can make it very simple to understand.
The people that don't understand it so well, when they explain it,
they need like nine whiteboards, seven hours, multiple sessions, and like 16 handouts.
It's so complicated.
It's one of the ways, and we talk about ministry, and we used to do it all the time with preachers.
(10:51):
You can tell the difference between the person that's really well-prepared and
knows it versus the person that's not well-prepared and doesn't know it very
well is how simply they can explain it.
Those old gray-haired saint preachers, man, I tell you what,
mountain preachers. I mean, they would just say it plainly and simply.
(11:13):
And why? Because they had the smoke of battle on them, the smoke of experience.
They knew it. Get someone pretending to be Preacher Boy up there and like it
turns into a physics equation rocket science algorithm that nobody gets.
Is your vision plain? So the first question is, do you have a vision?
(11:34):
Second question is, is it specific enough and plain enough that you can actually understand it?
And the people around you that are partnering with you to help you succeed in
that vision, that they can understand it.
I think this takes shape. It takes shape in a lot of places.
I think it does, especially in the family. I tell you, it's just carried over into 2024.
(11:58):
I'm learning so much about family life, both as a husband and as a father.
I think largely because I'm actually paying attention right really trying to
improve and in trying to improve you often realize how much you really have to improve yeah.
But one of the things that I'm really working on actively in my marriage,
(12:20):
really working on actively with my children is, are we being plain?
Is it simple? Do we really understand what it is that the expectations are,
what it is that our vision is that we're focused on together and individually?
Do we really understand it? Has it been broken down in a way that's very, very clear?
(12:45):
I don't know about you, but I find so much of the disorder and friction and
getting rubbed wrong and all the stuff that can happen inside of a family, inside of a marriage,
has so much to do with expectations that just were not clear on both sides.
And the enemy of clarity is busyness and noise and distraction.
(13:09):
And so we really have to almost get people by the shoulders and they almost
have to get us by the shoulders.
Stop us, look at us, make sure we're totally paying attention to say,
hey, did you hear what I just said?
Did you hear or do we understand where we're going? Where are you going?
Where am I going? Like, we really need to do this.
We have to understand. We have to be clear.
(13:32):
This verse is a voice of clarity. It's a verse of clarity. Write the vision, make it plain.
Write it down. You're actually going to have to think about this and actually put it to paper.
Make it plain. You're going to have to reduce it to sort of the lowest common
denominator, whether it's you're talking about your health or you're talking
about your marriage or you're talking about what you're doing in your business
(13:53):
or sales or marketing or whatever. Getting new clients doesn't matter.
Is it clear? Now, here's the part I want to close here. I hope you'll give these
some thought in the secret place, because boy, I tell you, it's relevant.
Write the vision, make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it.
You want to progress? You've got to have a vision that's simple enough for you
(14:16):
to understand that you've actually written down that you can refer to.
That's going to help you run your race.
Now, we're all going to run the race at our own pace, but that's going to help
you run the race. because you've got a destination.
You know what in the world you're working on. So many of us have no idea.
If you want a recipe for frustration, don't have any real clarity on what you're
(14:40):
working on, yet have a life that is busy as all get out.
And I promise you, you will get frustrated and more frustrated and more frustrated
and more frustrated. Then you'll get resentful. Then you'll get angry.
Then there'll be contention and there'll be arguments. disagreements and then
from there the whole thing's falling apart marriages
are fractured relationships with kids are jacked up
(15:02):
the whole thing happens because we're meandering please
be on the lookout for busy without purpose and our culture loves to keep us
busy without purpose here's a slack message here's an email here's a text here's
a notification from facebook the school sends out 17 emails a week about this
and that and it's hat day and bring in this and in the PTA and the other thing,
(15:25):
and there's an assembly and the thing, inspections due on the car and this bill's done.
I mean, we are just bombarded with busyness.
And if you stay busy long enough without purpose, purpose is just a defined
vision that you are working towards.
If you do that long enough, you are going to be in deep, deep trouble.
(15:49):
Some of you are there right now.
So how do we fix that? How do we take this verse and actually do something with it today?
Number one, I think we need to sit down, journal and pen in hand.
It doesn't have to be fancy. You can literally buy a spiral notebook from the
dollar store for 99 cents. Really, it doesn't have to be slick.
And we need to write down, what are the key areas in my life that I think need
(16:14):
a vision? That's number one.
What are the key areas that actually need a vision? Not everything needs a vision.
I don't need a vision for if I'm putting strawberry cream cheese or regular
cream cheese on my bagel, but I bet you I do need a vision for,
hey, what is my vision for my nutrition,
my health, my tracking, and what I'm doing there for those of us that need to worry about that?
(16:35):
So you don't. So those of you that are out there that are elite triathletes
and crossfitters and are flipping tires and have perfect blood pressure and
don't have to deal with that, okay, well, you might have something else that you need a vision in.
What in my life needs a vision? Number two, write the vision for it.
Three, write the vision that it's so plain and simple, I can summarize it in
(16:57):
a sentence on one side of a three by five card.
If it takes you nine pages to write that vision, friend, you don't have a vision.
You have a lot of ideas, some of which may be amazing, but you do not have enough
focus. That GPS will not get you to that destination.
You've got to reduce the fraction to write it, to make it plain and simple.
(17:18):
Once you've written in that, then we get to the hows. How am I going to do it?
I don't have time to teach that today, but the how is scheduling.
The how is resources in things or people that are going to help you do and get to your vision.
Very few visions that are worth anything are going to be done as a solo sport.
(17:41):
You're going to need a gang. You're going to need a band. You're going to need
people to roll with you you're gonna need people to help you i we we shared
the narrowgate story earlier the biggest struggle narrowgate had early on was
i was trying to do all of it myself.
Bad idea, right? For those of you thinking about church plants,
that's a bad, bad idea, okay?
Take it from someone who messed it up for a long time, all right?
(18:04):
So then we think about the hows. The hows are the stuff we'll need,
the people that are going to help us, and scheduling a life that supports it.
That's what I think we can do because with that, then we can run after what
we're doing. We've got the endurance.
We've got the engine. We've got the fuel in the engine to go after these things that we want to do.
(18:25):
And whatever they are, I think this truth is applicable in every area of our
life, whatever our goals may be.
And provided that they obviously don't violate the word of God,
we're on safe ground and God will bless it when we align ourselves with him
and we get clear on these things.
Would you give that some thought in the secret place today?
Hey, it was good to have you here today. Great to be with you for all of that second part.
(18:47):
A little more than the second half of April. If you haven't been out to iTunes
yet or Apple Podcast, and left us a review, please do that.
Five stars, write a sentence or two. Nothing helps us get found more than that.
And we'll be back in a little bit with some more content and pressing on from
here. Get to the secret place. I know Jesus will have some.
Music.
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