A vision is not an idea. It’s not a wish. It is a clear picture about the destination you want to be at. It is a detailed view of your life, who you want to be, what you want to do, what you look like; what that life looks like.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus talks to the rabbinic teacher, Nicodemus, about spiritual rebirth. If you read the text too quickly like most people do, you will miss it. Jesus in one line says, “no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” John is confused about how can a person be born a second time. Then Jesus says, “no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” I won’t get into the logistics of how spiritual rebirth takes place, maybe that is for another episode. But for Jesus, being seeing and being in are the same things.
If you have a clear vision about your life, where you are going, the destination, then you will get there. Notice I did not say, can get there, I said will get there. Our lives are already marching toward a destination whether we know it or not. We are cars always turned on. Our direction is shaped by forces we understand and do not understand.
We go to bed being told where to go, and in which direction to take our lives. When wake up, we're also directed by our work, our family, our friends, our culture, our society. Some places are more severe than in the United States. The pressure to conform. But here, we at least are allowed some opportunity to make some choices. But many people do not. I would say that most people do not. And therefore they do not possess freedom.
The main reason is that they do not possess the imagination to have a vision big enough and bold enough to shape their lives. When we were young, we could imagine all sorts of things. The world was full of possibilities, unlimited in every way. But as we aged, we were taught how to think about our lives and our world. In, Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” he gives the example:
I love telling it — of a little girl who was in a drawing lesson. She was six, and she was at the back, drawing, and the teacher said this girl hardly ever paid attention, and in this drawing lesson, she did. The teacher was fascinated. She went over to her, and she said, “What are you drawing?” And the girl said, “I'm drawing a picture of God.” And the teacher said, “But nobody knows what God looks like.” And the girl said, “They will in a minute.”
The problem is that created places where instead of imagination, we have certainty. We too often teach our young people that this is the way it is and there is no other way for you. There’s no room for wonder, play, questions.
This is where, in the realm of church and theology, we went totally wrong. As soon as there were dogmas and doctrines, as orthodoxy and heresy, the spiritual exited the door. This is not to say that people could not find anything spiritual in those forms of religion, but too often those these things became idols. I know so many theologians who were excommunicated from their denominations for teaching ideas outside the scripts they were given. Who says what is orthodox or not orthodox? Historically, it has not been people who looked like me. This is the death of imagination.
We need to be allowed to let our imaginations run wild. To draw up a possible view of ourselves and our lives where people would look at it and be shocked. They say, how could he do that? How dare he say that? Then we need to be open to uncertainty that what we intend will not be the correct course. However, the good news, the great news is with imagination, we can correct the direction of and set sail again.
Sir Ken Robinson says, “If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.” The great thing about having the ability to imagine a future for ourselves is the ability to test the waters and make corrections.
On the ride to Waco, for Paula’s grandfather’s funeral, I took out my journal, and we went back and forth as I wrote a list of 50 personal accomplishments. Paula was driving do she dictated to me her list. It was difficult, of course, but we did it. It’s a great exercise because we see all that we have gained and then compare it to our goals we had. Some, we did not quite achieve, but we don’t judge the difference, but were intentional about what we learned and where we grew. It was remarkable what both of us achieved within 365 days!
For 2025, start by setting that vision for yourselves, and your communities to go forth boldly into the new year. If you need help to do this, I can surely help you. For my executive clients, I do this every three months. However, if we don’t attempt it, another year will go by quicker than we think, and we will ask ourselves what you accomplished for this year. Make it as explicit as possible. Paint the picture with intention so that it surprises even you. And get to achieving it.
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