November 6, 2009 by Andy Stanley 0 comments

Posted in: Weekly Devotionals

Visioneering. A new word. An old concept. A familiar process. Where definitions fall short, a story often achieves clarity. So let's begin with a story.

On December 17, 1903, at 10:35 A.M., Orville Wright secured his place in history by executing the first powered and sustained flight from level ground. For twelve gravity-defying seconds he flew 120 feet along the dunes of the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

In the field of aviation, this historic event represents a beginning. But for Orville and Wilbur Wright, it was the end of a long and tedious journey. A journey initiated by a dream common to every little boy. The desire to fly. But what most children abandon to the domain of fantasy, Orville and Wilbur Wright seized upon as potential reality. They believed they could fly. More than that, they believed they should fly.

Wilbur described the birth of their vision this way.

Our personal interest in it [aviation] dates from our childhood days. Late in the autumn of 1878, our father came into the house one evening with some object partly concealed in his hands, and before we could see what it was, he tossed it into the air.

Instead of falling to the floor, as we expected, it flew across the room till it struck the ceiling, where it fluttered awhile, and finally sank to the floor. It was a little toy, known to scientist as a "helicoptere," but which we, with sublime disregard for science, at once dubbed a "bat."

It was a light frame of cork and bamboo, covered with paper, which formed two screws, driven in opposite directions by rubber bands under torsion. A toy so delicated lasted only a short time int the hands of small boys, but it's memory was abiding.(1)

This childhood experience sparked in the boys an insatiable desire to fly. The only thing they lacked was a means. So they immediately went to work removing the obstacles that stood between them and their dream. They began building their own helicopteres. In doing so they stumbled upon the principles of physics that would pave the way to their first successful manned flight. In short, they began to engineer their vision. They took the necessary steps to ensure that what they believed could be, would be. This process captures the essence of visioneering.

Visioneering is the course one follows to make dreams a reality. It is the process whereby ideas and convictions take on substance. As the story of the Wright brothers illustrates, visioneering is the engineering of a vision. If I were to boil it down to a formula, it would look something like this:

VISIONEERING = INSPIRATION + CONVICTION + ACTION + DETERMINATION + COMPLETION

DESTINATIONS

Life is a journey. And as you know, every journey has a destination. We are going to spend some time discussing your destination. Not heaven and hell. Your destination in this life. Where you will end up in the various roles you play; what you will accomplish personally, professionally, domestically, and spiritually.

Everybody ends up somewhere in life. A few people end up somewhere on purpose. Those are the ones with vision. They may have other things going for them as well. But they certainly have vision. Not necessarily a vision (singular). Vision for each of the key roles they are assigned along the way.

Life is a multifaceted journey. It calls for a multifaceted vision.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you have multiple visions for your life. That is, you have a mental picture of what you want the various arenas of your life to look like down the road.

If I were to ask you to describe how you picture your life in ten years, chances are you could paint a fairly clear picture. No doubt you could outline a financial profile. You could describe what you hope to achieve relationally. You have some idea of where you want to be professionally. In other words, you would be able to look beyond what is and paint a picture of what could be - and in some cases what should be - true of your life. That's vision.

A clear vision, along with the courage to follow through, dramatically increase your chances of coming to the end of your life, looking back with a deep abiding satisfaction, and thinking, I did it. I succeeded. I finished well. My life counted.

Without a clear vision, odds are you will come to the end of your life and wonder. Wonder what you could have done - what you should have done. And like so many, you may wonder if your life really mattered at all.

Vision gives significance to the otherwise meaningless details of our lives. And let's face it, much of what we do doesn't appear to matter much when evaluated apart from some larger context or purpose.

But take the minutia of this very day, drop it into the cauldron of a God-ordained vision, stir them around, and suddenly there is purpose! Meaning! Adrenaline!

It is the difference between filling bags with dirt and building a dike in order to save a town. There's nothing glamorous or fulfilling about filling bags with dirt. But saving a city is another thing altogether. Building a dike gives meaning to the chore of filling bags with dirt. And so it is with vision.

Too many times the routines of life begin to feel like shoveling dirt. But take those same routines, those same responsibilities, and view them through the lens of vision and everything looks different. Vision brings your world into focus. Vision brings order to chaos. A clear vision enables you to see everything differently.

Adapted from "Visioneering" by Andy Stanley