The Vision and The Vow

The Vision and The Vow is a book I'm reading right now by Pete Greig. So far I'm only on Chapter 2 but its pretty good. There's been one section however that just really hit home for me. It's called "Clarity of Vision." Now the word "vision" has come up a lot in my world lately. Mainly this past school year through now and its really been getting me thinking so when I saw that was the name of this section, it immediately caught my interest. But the part of this section that got me, however, was not the vision part; it was the clarity part.

For so long now I've had my heart set on somehow being a full time missionary one day. I didn't (and still don't) know how I was going to get there. My ideal fantasy was of course to fall in love with a guy in the ministry and travel with him and bla bla bla... So when I started school, I wasn't sure what I "wanted to do with my life." You have to pick a job path and well, lets face it. Missions isn't exactly a major at a liberal arts school like CofC. So I was going to do something I could use in missions: med school. God changed my mind on that pretty quickly. So many of you know that now I'm pre nursing with hopes of being a CRNA (Anesthetist). Anyway, the point is, during all this time and even recently, I've always always prayed for "clarity." Keep that in mind as you read this next part.

In this book, Pete Greig tells a story of a man who went to work with Mother Teresa for a few months in Calcutta. He wanted a "clear vision for the rest of his life." Once there, Mother Teresa asked what she could do for him. He answered to simply pray for him. She then asked what he needed prayer for and he said "Pray that I get clarity for the future." She answered "No! I will not do that. Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of." He then replied "But you always seem to have clarity." Mother Teresa then said, "I have never had clarity. What I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God."

Hmm...So when Jesus calls us to follow Him in our lives, we always sort of look for this roadmap. We want specific directions and often forget that God's way from point A to point C is not always through point B (From book). I guess I always figured that God would tell me exactly what He wants me to do. He's going to make it very clear that this is where I need to go or this is the major I need to have or something like that but its just not the case here. I'm constantly expecting a "sign" or something but they're just not showing up. And here's why. He wants us to trust Him. He wants us to run into the future like so many of us are struggling with right now, knowing nothing except for that fact that He loves us and will be there for the entire journey. There's not going to be some deep strong voice coming down from the sky saying "Go here" or "Don't go there." We just have to trust Him. We have to trust that no matter what, all things will work out for His glory. We have to trust Him. We have to trust Him. And again we have to trust Him. Such a simple concept but so hard to really really really do.

There are many examples in the one roadmap we do have. For instance, when Jesus was gathering His disciples, He said "Come follow me." Do you really think they had any idea what they were getting into? Where they'd be going? What they'd be doing? You think Peter knew he'd walk on water? Nope. They just had to trust Him. And they did.

So yea. I guess I just need to stop praying for clarity...because really...who needs it? I have God on my side. That's all I need right? I don't need to know right now where all my life is going to take me. I just need to trust that wherever it does take me, God is going to be there too. So that's my little spill on that subject. And I'm posting a poem below this written by Pete Greig called The Vision. Its soooo good! Kinda long but worth the read. Read it!

The Vision

So this guy comes up to me and says:

"What's the vision? What's the big idea?"

I open my mouth and words come out like this:

The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? I see an army.
And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons.
They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday.
They wouldn’t even notice.
They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.

They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision ?

The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to loose,
that they might one day win
the great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don’t need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners. Martyrs.
Who can stop them ?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays

like a dying man
with groans beyond talking,
with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and
with great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive

Inside.

On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.
Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.

Don’t you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdo’s! Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.
They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;
it will come easily;
it will come soon.

How do I know?

Because this is the longing of creation itself,
the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is his today.
My distant hope is his 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from hero’s of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.