By Steve Smith
Leaders need to have Faith Vision. It must be multidimensional. We must allow the Lord to help us see how He sees and this includes the past, present, and future.
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. Proverbs 29:18
A Leader’s vision is imperative. Without vision, a person cannot be a truly effective leader. A Leader’s vision also must be unique to the position of leadership and go beyond what is considered normal.
Leaders must have God’s vision – Faith vision. Faith vision sees the way God sees.
God looked out on the face of the deep where the world was void, dark and without form and spoke the worlds into existence. He is the world’s greatest Visionary. He saw what no one else could have seen, He saw what He wanted it to look like and then He created what He saw. As Leaders, we must do the same thing. We must see what no one else can see and act on that vision and lead people to realize what we see.
As Joshua began his leadership endeavors, leading Israel into the Promised Land, he experienced great victory at Jericho. Then, because of Achan’s sin, he experienced great defeat at Ai. After the sin in the camp had been dealt with, God commanded him to get ready for the next campaign and He spoke some powerful words to Joshua, as he got ready to go out.
And the LORD said unto Joshua, Tear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land: Joshua 8:1
God encouraged Joshua and spoke words of encouragement and confidence to him but notice that the Lord also said to him…SEE. See? See what?! See how we messed up? See how we’ve been defeated? See how bad things are? NO! See, I have given the king of Ai into your hand, and his people, and his city, and his land! But Lord I can’t see any of that! If you see what I see you can! It just takes Faith Vision, seeing the way the Lord sees!
Joshua had this kind of vision because in verse three of chapter eight says he arose and did what the Lord told him to do. By faith, he acted on what he visualized and it happened just as God said it would!
The way that we perceive things has the ability to change the way that we think and act. As a leader, it is so important to have a proper perspective in every situation. The way that we see things, our perspective, will determine decisions that are made and direction that is taken. It is easy to allow challenges or obstacles along the way to obscure our vision. At times even people around us, because their vision is not the same as ours, will cause us not to see things the way the Lord wants us to see them. They can so easily negatively affect us and our vision. Keep your leadership focused. Have Faith Vision.
One of the greatest challenges of a leader is sharing your vision with followers. It’s been said that vision is something that is caught, not taught. Every leader has experienced times when trying to express their vision with words isn’t enough. They just can’t seem to get their vision across or effectively share it with those they’re leading. It’s that much harder also when a leader isn’t seeing things through Faith Vision. Yet, when a leader is seeing things with Faith Vision, seeing the ‘big picture’, looking through the eyes of faith, they believe anything is possible. No challenge is too difficult. No mountain is too high. No problem is too big. When we approach our leadership responsibilities with this kind of vision, with this kind of passion, with this kind of faith, you can be guaranteed it will make your vision that much easier to be ‘caught’ by those following your leadership!
It’s kind of like Elisha’s servant when they were surrounded by the enemies’ army. He needed his perspective altered. He needed Elisha’s Faith Vision!
And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, Open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. 2 Kings 6:17
Once he got the proper perspective on the situation, they were in and caught the prophet’s vision everything was all right! Oh, how our vision changes every situation!
A Leader’s vision must also be multidimensional. Clear vision must include lessons from the past that we are applying in the present that will surely affect the future.
Joshua also had this type of vision. When he began to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land through Jordan, he looked into the past when he sent spies out and only sent two. That was the number that had previously, forty years earlier, came back with a good report. He applied the lesson learned then in the past to the present situation he was in knowing quite well how the report would affect the entire nation’s future.
We should never forget the lessons learned from the past, strive to apply these lessons in the present so that the future will always be bright and filled with successes.
Ask the Lord to help you have multidimensional vision.
Ask the Lord to help yon have Faith Vision!
The above article, “Faith Vision,” was written by Steve Smith. The article was excerpted from the second chapter of Smith’s book A Leader’s Way Up.
This material is most likely copyrighted and should not be reprinted under any other name or author. However, this material may be freely used for personal study or research purposes.
