“I lift my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”Ps 121:1-2 (Amplified)
Vision is often defined as today’s perception of what tomorrow will be. It is the goal we see in our mind’s eye and towards which we strive and the end for which we focus our energy and resources. Consequently, the saying that what you cannot conceive you cannot achieve is not far from the truth and is in fact borne out in our daily living. However, while it is a challenge to develop a concise vision of what we think our lives should be about in the good times, this can become complicated if we have to forge that vision in unfavourable circumstances. However, it is also true that the best time to conceive a worthwhile vision is during difficult times as the hardships serves to focus our minds on what is important and needs doing. Difficulties thus become the impetus for us to aspire and pursue greater ideals the same way that an increase in the ambient temperature kick starts the development of a fertilised egg into a chick. Had things remained easy, there would have been no reason to seek to make progress.
So, in these difficult times, what do we need to do to profit and prosper in adversity? First, we need to look upward. Second, we need to look inward and finally, we need to strike outward. When in trouble, our reflex response should be to look up to God and seek His mind and obtain the necessary solutions. We need to see our situation from His higher perspective. We then need to look inward as we assess and tap into the resources God has already inputted into us, after which we can then confidently set out to do what His word commands us. Failure to see things from God’s higher perspective can cause us to become overwhelmed our by situation, while not looking inward can cause us to keep looking for that proverbial pie in the sky, thinking that God will come and do what He has already equipped us to do while we do nothing. We will then be unable to make progress as we are bogged down in our problems.
Whenever God wants us to see beyond our present limiting or difficult circumstances, His usual command is “Look up and see”. After Abraham had parted from Lot and all he had to live on were less fertile hills and mountains, God commanded Him to look up and see and that whatever his eyes saw was his inheritance. The same goes for Jacob when he was in the employ of his ruthless and cheating uncle Laban. It is no wonder the writer of Proverbs said that my people perish for lack of vision because what you cannot conceive or see, you can never achieve. God’s challenge for you today is to look up and see. So if you have been looking down in despondency until now, this is the time to stop your wasteful, fruitless and faithless action and start looking up to the God who can do all things and whose plan for your life is to do you good and not evil so that your expectations can become tangible realties. Understand that poverty is the end result of the deficit of Godly ideas. So, ask for that one idea from a God who has more than a thousand and one ways of resolving one particular problem and you will be surprised at how just one word from God can change your life irreversibly for the better.
Prayer:
Lord, open my eyes so that I may see the wondrous truths that you have already seen. Give me that one life-changing idea from your well of infinite wisdom that will transform my life and enable me to prosper in adversity and glorify your name. Amen.