Discovering your personal vision: Why is personal vision important?

Discovering your personal vision: Why is personal vision important?

Everyone will be forgotten, nothing we do will make any difference, and all good endeavors, even the best, will come to naught . . . Unless there is God. If the God of the Bible exists, and there is a True Reality beneath and behind this one, and this life is not the only life, then every good endeavor, even the simplest ones, pursued in response to God’s calling, can matter forever. ― Tim Keller, Every Good Endeavor

In my last article on personal vision I said, “Our personal vision is the clearest description of our calling, what God has made us to do in this life.” The question we want to address in today is, “How do we discover our personal vision, or calling?”

It is important to remember that jobs and careers come and go. Your calling—your God-appointed mission in life—stays constant throughout your life because it is a reflection of who God has made you to be.

George Barna defines “vision” as “the clear mental image of a preferable future imparted by God to his chosen servants based upon an accurate understanding of God, self, and circumstances.” Given this definition we can begin to see why it is so important for us to discover our calling, or personal vision. Discovering our personal vision will help us to:

Live holistic lives. Theologian Louis Berkhof wrote, “…If all those who are now citizens of the Kingdom would actually obey its laws in every domain of life, the world would be so different that it would hardly be recognized.”

Live with a Kingdom focus. Jesus tells us to “seek first the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 6:33).

Live lives that are transformational. As Christians who become salt and light, we have the ability to influence and transform the world around us (Matt. 5:13-16).

Live in a uniquely Christian manner. We must live lives worthy of our calling (Eph. 4:1-16).

Live with an eye to the common good. We are most blessed when we are a blessing to others (Jer. 29:7).

Our calling is the expression of our personalities and our gifts in a unique, given direction. In seeking to discover our personal vision, we must realize that God created us with many particular characteristics, desires, and talents. Instead of embracing the world’s maxim, “You are what you do,” we are to understand God’s calling to say, “Do what you are.”

Here are five areas in which you can find clues that will help you discover you personal vision:

Personality: Understand your God-given personality, because it defines the real you. There are many tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator that you can take this will give you great insight into your personality.

Strengths and gifts: Take a test like StrengthsFinder, to help you more clearly identity your strengths and gifts.

Passions: Sit down and make a list of the things you are really passionate about.

Life verse: Is there one verse in the Scriptures that so strongly resonates with you that you would call it your life verse?

Life history: As you look back through your life, even your childhood, are there things that you were really good at and sincerely enjoyed doing?

As you prayerfully consider these five areas, a picture of who God has made you to be will begin to emerge. This picture may be fuzzy at first, but it will begin to give you a foundation on which you can create a meaningful personal vision for your life. It’s also important to work through these five areas in community. Your friends, family, and church can help you see your personality, your strengths and gifts, and other aspects of yourself you might not see at first.

Our world is governed by God, and so is your life. You are the work of his hands. The only way your life will have true meaning is when you engage God’s world the way that he designed you to. Early in the Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf tells Frodo, “All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.”

And so it is with each of us.

"Where there is no vision, the people perish." - Proverbs 29:18

In the first article in this series we began exploring five tools for applying biblical principles to all of life, including how we approach work and economics.

Personal vision is the first of the five tools, or mental models, we want to discuss. It starts with understanding who God has created you to be, and what he has called you to do.

The Basis of Personal Vision

King David writes in Psalm 139:13-14, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

A closer look at the original Hebrew text for this passage tells us that we are created with great reverence, heart-felt interest and respect. We are unique, set apart and marvelous in God’s eyes.

The Apostle Paul writes to the Ephesians in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Not only are we uniquely made, but God has created and equipped each of us to do something very special. Our salvation is not just a bus ticket to heaven, but an invitation to participate in God’s redemptive plan to rescue humanity and the physical universe. N.T. Wright, in his book The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is, puts it this way:

Our task as image-bearing, God-loving, Christ-shaped, Spirit-filled Christians, following Christ and shaping our world, is to announce redemption to a world that has discovered its fallenness, to announce healing to a world that has discovered its brokenness, to proclaim love and trust to a world that knows only exploitation, fear and suspicion…The gospel of Jesus points us and indeed urges us to be at the leading edge of the whole culture, articulating in story and music and art and philosophy and education and poetry and politics and theology and even–heaven help us–biblical studies, a worldview that will mount the historically-rooted Christian challenge to both modernity and post-modernity, leading the way…with joy and humor and gentleness and good judgment and true wisdom.

The Purpose of Personal Vision

Discovering your personal vision helps you understand who you are in Christ, your talents and your comparative advantages. It helps you know how to create the greatest value for yourself, your family, your church, your community and your work for the glory of God. A personal vision should do many things, including:

• Motivate us.

• Give us great purpose.

• Give us direction.

• Be something that matters to us.

• Lead us to the right strategy.

• Serve us and the common good.

Our personal vision is the clearest description of our calling, what God has made us to do in this life. It should constantly remind us of the unique way in which God has chosen us to fit into his great plan of redemption.

In fact, one of the great joys of being a Christian is that you have the confidence of knowing that you personally fit into this great plan. While the specifics of our lives and callings may vary, we share a common purpose: to bring the principles of God’s kingdom to bear in every area of life. Our personal vision ties us to this common scriptural goal.

Unfortunately, many Christians live lives devoid of a personal vision, or embrace one given to them by the culture – one that is incompatible with the call God has placed on their lives.

Without a vision from God we perish, as Proverbs 29:18 points out. We become fatigued in our walk with God and we become demoralized, living with no sense of purpose. Discovering and developing a personal vision for your life is an issue of great importance.

In my next article I will share some practical ideas to help you discover and develop your personal vision.

By HUGH WHELCHEL

Hugh Whelchel is executive director of the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, a Biblical advocacy think tank based in the Washington, D.C. area. He is the author of How Then Should We Work? Rediscovering the Biblical Doctrine of Work.