A Vision For Your Family
Posted by Martha & Greg Singleton , Tuesday, March 4, 2008 9:51 AM
I have several friends who are graduates of the prestigious school of music at the University of North Texas. Whenever that group gets together, inevitably, they begin to swap stories about a real-life Dallas-area musician who happens to embody all the traits of the stereotypical musician’s caricature – an oblivious, vacant airhead with absolutely nothing on his mind but his music. Durwood is, indeed, a legend.
One day, he was packing his instruments into his van for a gig* he was playing in Amarillo, 300 miles away, up in the Texas Panhandle. Durwood, of course, had given no previous consideration to the logistics of his trip. So, when he saw an 18-wheeler passing by with the name of a company and “Amarillo, Texas” emblazoned on the side, he decided it would be a good thing if he just followed the truck all the way to his destination.
Durwood’s first clue that something was amiss should have been that the trip was taking a lot longer than it should have. But, he really got suspicious when all the road signs were in Spanish. He had followed that truck all the way down into Mexico. Amarillo was now about 600 miles back in the other direction. Durwood was not a man of vision.
I would define “vision” as “knowing who we are and where we’re going.” Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” We’ve often heard this scripture used as a rallying cry for a floundering church. It has motivated congregations to re-focus and set specific goals for worship and ministry. What would it look like if we applied the truth found in that verse in our homes and families? What’s the specific vision that you have for your family?
Prayerfully seek God to determine what He wants your family’s vision to be. That can be as foundational as the attitudes that He wants reflected in your home. And, that’s really a great place to start. As you work to enact those basic characteristics into the structure of your home, you will most likely see some other things begin to happen, too.
In Proverbs 29:18, we are familiar with the King James translation of the word “perish.” Other translations probably more accurately define it as “unrestrained,” “uncontrolled,” or “running wild.” Does that sound familiar? Every home has had at least a few days when “unrestrained” would be a nice way to describe the atmosphere there. When a family has a definite vision in place for how they should look and what their goals are, those days are not as frequent and are more manageable when they do occur.
God’s vision for your home is not only a general idea about how you conduct yourselves. Your family vision also will allow each person under your roof to begin to blossom. It provides fertile ground where each individual can discover his unique talents and abilities. It brings into focus a picture of what each person has to offer to others there, and creates a lab where they can refine those gifts in order to touch their entire world.
Discover God’s vision for your family! Work together to make it a reality. Be determined to establish it in the lives of each individual and the entire household. And, then, watch God bring order and purpose there.
* “job,” in the musician’s lexicon; a shout-out to all my musician friends
