Divided Vision
Biblical Wisdom on Misalignment With God's Vision for Our Lives
In preparation for the last Bible study I led, I found myself asking a few uncomfortable questions:
Do we really share God’s vision?
Do we truly trust His vision for our lives?
Do our daily actions and decisions reflect trust in His vision or reveal doubts and trust in our own understanding?
I was led to explore this topic at the start of the year and it felt fitting. Every year we have a view of how we think our lives will unfold. But how do we actually know it aligns with what God wants?
There are moments when we have one eye on God’s promises and one eye on what we believe should be happening. We have God’s declared vision and the plans He has for us, and then we have our functional day-to-day vision, which pits the ideas in our minds against our current circumstances.
When there’s a misalignment between how we think life should be going and how life is actually going, we doubt. We panic. And it’s within this space of misalignment and doubt that divided vision - the two competing visions - reveals itself.
Proverbs 29:18 (NLT)
“When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.”
For a long time, I thought this verse spoke only to lawlessness and people living however they wanted - think lawlessness like Sodom and Gomorrah. It very well could, and I may have it completely wrong, but I’d like to propose an alternative view.
I believe that when we don’t accept divine guidance, the burden of the outcome shifts from God to us, and we separate ourselves from His vision for us. We were never meant to be self-reliant, and carrying the burden of the outcome leads to stress and anxiety, i.e. loss of joy.
To add further emphasis to this point, let’s consider what Jesus said in John 15:10-11 (NIV):
“If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
Jeremiah 29:10-14 (NIV)
‘This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”’
Learning to accept the idea that God’s will for our lives may include suffering might be one of the biggest challenges to my faith. Oh how I loved when people of faith quoted Jeremiah 29:11, “for I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not harm you”. How heartwarming, comforting and motivating.
…till I read the text in its entirety. The scripture applies to His sovereign will, not our limited understanding or desires. Considering verse 10: “when seventy years are completed”. Hold up, seventy years. Seven zero. Threescore years and ten. 70!
Now consider Psalm 90:10 (NIV):
“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.”
The humbling reality is that God’s plan is for His people, not our personal ambitions. Just because we’re in our “Babylon” season doesn’t mean it isn’t God’s will for us as individuals. It also doesn’t mean we should throw in the towel. We have to keep being obedient to what His word says.
Personal Ambition
The million-dollar question: How do we delineate between God’s vision for our lives and personal ambition?
Primarily, one is rooted in control and self-determination while the other is rooted in obedience and surrender. For the record, I don’t believe personal ambition is wrong as long as it remains in line with scripture. I believe our souls long for the abundance that is rightfully ours, and that we had access to before the fall of man. But I digress.
I bring up delineating between our ambitions and God’s will because when the things we believe He has promised to us seem distant according to our flesh and lived experiences, we run the risk of leaning on our own understanding. Violating Proverbs 3:5 (NIV):
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Circling back to the idea of divided-vision, we may utter with our mouths that we trust in God’s will for our lives and His vision for eternity, but our day-to-day decisions and reflect a trust in our own understanding in the short to medium term.
In parallel however, “success” in line with our personal ambitions can cloud our vision and cause us to think that is what He wants for us. Understandably, it’s difficult to be grateful for suffering but very easy to be grateful for success in the natural.
We like the edited version of His vision. The version with us triumphant, wealthy and everything goes swimmingly well, but what about the director’s cut? What about the version with the valleys? What about the version with years of toil and waiting?
For me, I believe the delineation starts at the root i.e. the motivation behind personal ambition. Is it birthed from a need for significance? To prove a point to people? A need for security? Trauma? Or is it for the glory of His kingdom? Remember Matthew 6:33 (NIV):
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
Note: Important to note that God can use any and everyone and any and every situation for His will. But this is about our heart posture.
Another hallmark that sets apart God’s will and our personal ambition is timing. When we try to force things to happen in our own time, or force what God has promised (think Abraham and Ishmael), we allow personal ambition to take the place of His vision.
One thing worth paying close attention to is dressing up personal ambition in spiritual language. I believe it makes it incredibly difficult to tell the difference between a fire in us lit by the Holy Spirit or by our own ego.
I submit to you that this is the most dangerous form of Di-vision. We create a version of God that happens to want exactly what we want. Dig a little deeper and we realise we identify our wants and use God’s name to validate them.
It is a potent form of self-deception as it allows us to bypass scrutiny. “God told me…” statements often disguise our wants as a form of service or obedience. “God is opening a door…” is often used when a shortcut is about to be taken, bypassing the process.
N.B.: God does speak to us and does open doors. Please don’t take this as me disputing that.
Case Studies in Di-Vision
Adam & Eve - Genesis 3
The original separation from His vision. The serpent questioned God’s word causing Eve to lean on her own understanding. This marks the first shift from obedience to self-direction, one we’re still paying for to this day. Food and a promise of wisdom were all it took.
Abram & Sarai - Genesis 16
This took place during the season of waiting between the promise and the fulfilment. This wasn’t disbelief in the promise, more from impatience with the process - something more common today. The human of understanding of their advancing years created a competing vision that the promise may not come to pass so they took matters into their own hands.
Saul - 1 Samuel 13:8-14
Saul succumbed to pressure, as many of us do to the pressures of life. His army was leaving and Samuel was delayed so he took matters into his own hands and leaned on his own understanding. He believed performing the offering himself (immediate control) was more important than his obedience.
Concluding
Fundamentally, when it’s all said and done we will only truly know if we carried out God’s will when we get to the end and He says to us “well done good and faithful servant”. The Bible outlines what we should do and how we should live and anything contrary to that isn’t of God.
Another thought I have is around procrastination. There is no bigger indicator of an assumption of things being in our control than deciding to do something later - in our time. What gives us the right to decide that we will live to do said thing later? This is a whole other topic in itself so I’ll leave it there for now.
Believing in God’s vision is easy, theoretically. The edited version where we come out triumphant is great! But trusting in the details - when it’s painful, when it’s (seemingly) delayed, when it humbles us, when the end isn’t in sight - that’s difficult.
As I wrap up this newsletter, I’d like to remind you of the questions I posed at the beginning:
Do we really share God’s vision?
Do we really trust in God’s vision for our lives?
Do our daily actions and decisions reflect trust in His vision or reveal doubts and trust in our own understanding?
Hopefully you can answer them now and take corrective action if necessary, or continue on the path you’re on with full confidence that you’re walking in alignment.
As always, make a decision that future you will be grateful for.
Have a great weekend!
CT
