Beth Moore shared a pattern that she has observed regarding “vision” and the loss of one’s vision. It has 4 stages:
– Initial Vision- When we first see and grasp a sense of God’s purpose and plan. The vision fills us with joy and excitement.
– Unwanted Vision- As it progresses, we begin to see things that we don’t expect to see and don’t want to see in ourself or in others. We see darkness. It is a time of disillusion and disappointment. It can also be very disorienting and confusing. It tests our faith and is an opportunity to discover more of the truth of who God is and how he works. It often opens one’s eyes to truths previously unknown.
– Loss of Vision- Filled with doubt and questions about the vision and resulting new truth and whether we really even had vision or whether it was God. We second guess God and ourselves. Maybe I really didn’t see anything at all. Was the vision ever real? It is the death of naivete’. It is the reality that truth has a hard side. One risks losing a sense of God’s call altogether.
– Re-Vision- One comes to see in a whole new way. Sometimes it includes the original vision, but it always transcends it! It is always harder than originally pictured AND it is always better!
This is certainly what I experienced in my pursuit of ordination as a deacon in the UMC. As I reflected on this pattern she shared, it is indeed a process that lifts one to higher and new awareness of God. God is faithful and brings us through the confusion and pain of seeing the hard side, the dark side of truth.
I’ve long suspected and have begun to be able to demonstrate that God found it necessary to reveal his purpose and plan in small measures over time in a progressive kind of way because the BIGNESS of it and the GRANDEUR or it would overwhelm us otherwise! Our capacity for understanding God is so limited by our physical earthly experience that we have to be led bit by bit into understanding the heavenly things of God.
“Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light
Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord
Thou my great Father, I Thy true son
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise
Thou mine Inheritance, now and always
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart
High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art.
High King of Heaven, my victory won
May I reach Heaven’s joys, O bright Heav’n’s Sun
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.”
Songwriters: Ian Lynn / Traditional
Be Thou My Vision lyrics © Conexion Media Group, Inc