“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” Albert Einstein
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” The writer of Hebrews
Our minds have the amazing capacity to create a desirable future and to work towards making that future happen. That is what vision is all about. That’s our capacity to envision. When rightly seen, vision and faith are two sides of the same coin. They are expressions of the same thing.
Vision always comes from a deep-seated faith that sees things that are not visible to the naked eye and calls these things that don’t exist as if they were existing now. Vision assumes strong confidence in the agents that control the winds of change and that drive human achievements. It believes that these winds can and will blow favorably to work in concert with the hard work and determination of those who are envisioning for the vision to come to pass.
Faith and vision always work together to give a strong assurance or confidence in the things envisioned and hoped for, even when these things are futuristic and yet invisible.
The kind of assurance faith gives is extremely powerful. It is so powerful it is almost tangible, it’s like a title deed, a confirmation that something you’ve bought and paid in cash will be delivered to you in the future, no questions asked. That’s the power of the hope that comes from faith. It’s like a divine guarantee that you will get what you believe in the heart and have seen through vision. The vision of faith then becomes both the content of what is hoped for and the evidence of those unseen things. It becomes a potent conviction that comprehends as fact what cannot be seen today. When in full force, it allows the visionary to experience with the physical senses the effect of the vision and feel and enjoy it as if they were already there at that future time.
Great visionaries are able to welcome their visions of faith from a distance. Think of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and the conviction he had when he gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. He died without personally receiving what he hoped for and envisioned. Yet, the strong man of faith and vision that he was, spoke with such conviction he welcomed the things he was seeing from afar and rejoiced in their coming, yet he himself never personally lived to receive them in reality.
In only a short time, much of what he imagined is a reality today.
That’s how powerful faith (vision) is.
| Faith is of the heart. Vision gives faith sight and foresight. Vision is faith in full blossom. Faith is the acorn that in the right mental soil gives rise to a magnificent oak. |
Yet, vision is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, you can have a one-year vision, a five-year vision, a ten-year vision, etc.
Vision is also a clear, vivid, and compelling mental image of how a calling plays out at a specific time in the future.
| Without faith, it is impossible to live out your calling in life. Without faith, it is impossible to make an impact on the world. Faith allows you to jump and then grow your wings in the air. No one has succeeded without jumping. |
