The Prophet Speaks: Pastor Jonathan Andrews

Habakkuk 2:2 “And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it.”

Vision defined is the act or power of sensing with the eyes or anticipating that which will/may come to be.
Vision is such an important topic in so many facets of life. Just the word vision can mean so many things, differing on the audience. If I were to ask a basketball player about vision, they would begin to tell me how it is important to see the court as you are passing the ball to an open player for an easy basket. If I were to ask a restaurant chef about vision, they may bring up being prepared to have enough ingredients for that week’s food service. Or if I were to ask a mayor about vision, he may begin to discuss the foresight of having the necessary roads in place for the expected growth over the next ten years.

In all of these instances, without the use of vision, failure is almost guaranteed. This begs the question of, “why do we rarely use vision in our own daily lives?” For most of us, we live a distracted life. Whether it is on purpose or not we choose to be uninformed on God’s plan for our lives. We choose to hope that things will work out for the best. We make the decision that someone else will plan, just tell me what to do. Yet, failure always seems to be at our doorstep. And if not failure, it takes us years to accomplish what should be done in but a short time.
As we look at the scripture in Habakkuk, the Lord gave him precise directions on how to accomplish what was being required. The Lord said to “write the vision.” In other words it was a requirement to write down the directions that were being assigned. Even writing down words is so amazing. Because it requires you to show that you understand what was said to you verbally. If someone gives you directions and you can’t write them down, then you don’t understand what you were instructed to do.

Over the past few years, I’ve dabbled at being able to cook a great dish or two. I am not the type of person that can just make great food out of thin air. I need to follow a vision or recipe for success. My wife occasionally jokes that I will take the directions and meticulously follow them one ingredient at a time. By the time I am finished I have about three times the number of pans dirty because I did not want to lose my focus on what the instructions were telling me to do. The result is usually a delicious meal. I use the word usually because there are still occasions where have I veered off of the directions that were given to me. The good news is by making the correction, I can improve the next time that I make the dish.

Now let’s contrast that with someone who does not follow the recipe. The dish may turn out good or bad. But if it turns out poorly, corrections cannot be made because a certain recipe or vision was not followed to begin with. The recipe is the vision to success.

About the topic of vision, the scripture continues that it should be made “plain upon tables”. At this time, historians believe that people were already utilizing papyrus to write. However, papyrus was not as durable as writing things on clay tablets. So with the choice of paper or clay, Habakkuk was given the direction to write it on something that would last and be more permanent. Too often, our vision changes. God knew that in order for people to be able to run with the vision, it had to be something that was solid.

Before a building is constructed a very thorough vision/plans must be made. It must be thought through. It must go through inspections. It must be subjected to the wisdom, knowledge, and experience of those that have built buildings before. Before one shovel of dirt is moved, the vision must be written and approved. And once it is started, the plans are followed until it is completed. Now how would it look if half way through building a house, they change the plans and start building shopping mall. I can’t begin to list all the problems with that. However, we follow that same formula in our own lives. If you are going to change what you are building, you’d have to strip everything down and start over from scratch.
The scripture in Habakkuk concludes with being able to “run that readeth it”. Once a plan has been approved, there’s nothing left but to follow the plan. Living my entire life in Charlotte, NC I have seen sky scrapers go from nothing to towering over our city in a matter of weeks. If I didn’t realize that months and even years of preparation went into the vision for this building, I would be concerned. So don’t be concerned with how quickly things can or will grow if the proper planning was done.

What is your vision for the 2012? What is your vision for your family? Has God inspected and approved it. Have you written it down? Do you have something to follow? Or are you just waking up every morning “winging it”? Have you asked for the wisdom and knowledge of those that have gone through it before?

I believe God has amazing things in store for your life as he does mine. But we must be reminded of the importance of vision. Write down the vision, make it permanent, and watch as things begin to move quicker than they ever have before.

God bless!
Pastor Jonathan