For just a brief moment, I wanted to talk to you about vision.
Not with your eyes, necessarily, but rather with your minds and your hearts.
It has been said that without a clear vision, people perish, so the question becomes, what vision do you hold for the future? Can you see it? Has it been written down? When will you accomplish it? In a way, I am not the first to ask questions such as these; the Old Testament even deals with the subject.
In the book of Habakkuk, Chapter 2 it reads: "Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it, because it will surely come.
It will not tarry.
" So what exactly does that passage mean? While I am not here to offer insight into the true context of the biblical text, the words themselves can directly be applied to daily life.
It gives clear and precise instructions on what to do when you have an idea or a vision.
The first, and often most overlooked step is to write it down.
Without this step, the idea or vision remains something intangible, a hope, and an idea.
Once you take pen to paper, it becomes concrete and tangible.
The hope becomes a conviction; the idea starts to become an actual plan.
George Harrison perhaps said it best all those years ago, "If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.
" Next, the passage says, "Whoever reads it runs with it.
" This, at least to me, sounds like if you know the plan, understand the vision; you can start to implement it.
So take the time to really look over what you have written down.
By understanding what your vision truly is, you can understand what you need to do to meet your goal.
After you know the plan, and what you must do to accomplish it, do you set a firm deadline for yourself and your vision? Think about it, without a deadline, there is no real urgency.
Without a sense of urgency, do you really think that you would get anything accomplished? Finally, remember the passage that reads "Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
" Most people will read this passage and become confused.
But if you think about it, it does make sense.
The word tarry means to remain stay or wait.
These are all actions of someone who is patient, someone who is willing to wait for the right time to act.
Think of the farmer who goes out to plan and plant his crops for the year in the spring.
He knows that in order for his plants to grow and yield a crop, he must wait for the best time to harvest them.
He doesn't go out into the field two weeks after planting and curse the ground because his crops aren't yielding fruit yet.
No, he waits until the end of the summer, the beginning of the harvest time.
That way he is able to get the best that the land has to offer, all because he waited for, and acted at the right time.
While the farmer waits for the right time to harvest, he also knows that he must plant the seed at the right time as well.
This is a lesson that many salespeople fail to learn before it is to late.
A sale doesn't start with the client's signature at the bottom of the page - it starts with the sales person giving the client the idea that they could work together.
It begins with a smile and a handshake, or a voice and a vision.
Then it's a matter of taking the time and effort to grow and cultivate the idea with the customer until the time for reaping has arrived.
So are you excited about your vision?