Saturday, April 26, 2008
Unconditional Love
Series
Amos 5:4 “Seek me and live.”
The Vision to See Past a
Muddle
It is important that we all have a vision for our lives.
For most of the 20 years as the pastor of Spanish Fort
UMC, God has given me a vision for what He is trying to accomplish and as long
as I stick to that vision, talk about it, and write about, it the vision remains
in our hearts and we accomplish it. There are times, however, as the
vision was changing or I got in a muddle, that I forgot the vision and we as a
church declined. In my personal life as a human being I have always had a
vision of what I was supposed to be and do. Only did my life suffer
when I, in a muddle, lost the vision.
In his
mid-forties and pre-scandal days, Pete Rose played baseball as if he was still a
teenager. I read somewhere that someone asked Pete whether or not it was
the legs that are the first to go in professional baseball. Pete
responded that, “It was not the legs but the inner vision that was the first to
go.” What is our inner vision? Jesus gives us a vision
of what we are supposed to be and how we are supposed to live. He
talked endlessly to his disciples and in the Gospel he shares with us the vision
and the promise of his kingdom. Those who live in the
In English literature the word “muddle” is used a great
deal. As Brontë, Austin, Hardy and so many other English writers use
the word, “muddle” it means the character cannot think. I love
that word because often we get in a muddle and when we do, we forget the
vision. American people live in a world of lost heroes. The
front page of the newspaper tell sadly the stories of media people who get in a
muddle and have forgotten what they are supposed to be.
I have long believed that it is the average people who
are the heroes. If we accept the vision that we could heroically live as
Jesus lived, then at least the world that we live in will not lose its
vision. In Tel Aviv on the gates of the Wiseman Institute there is
engraved these words: “Look not to the kings of the east or the kings of the
west but to your own hands.” If our hands reflect the heart of our Lord
Jesus Christ and we never forget that we are a part of the building of his
kingdom then our vision will stick.
When we find ourselves in a muddle let us re-look at the
vision God has given us and concentrate on accomplishing the vision.
Prayer:
Dear God, help me not to be in a muddle. Help me
to stick to the vision. Amen.