Vision Map: Charting a Course for Your Hopes and DreamsSample

Pray and Pay Attention

The vision in your heart is a partnership between you and God. He gave you the vision and he wants to be involved in making it happen. Red-letter items on the Vision Map (things only God can do), remind us that without God this dream would never come to pass. You have a partner in this work.

A good partnership requires constant communication. Prayer is how we stay in communication with God – our partner in the vision.

A visionary is always in communication with God through prayer and is always paying attention for how God may work in unexpected ways we never could have known to write down on our Vision Map.

Life and plans are constantly changing. So we have to make sure we're connecting with God on a regular basis through prayer. Prayer is more than just talking to God and telling him our needs. We also need to listen closely for his direction. Often times, we think we need one thing for the dream to come to pass, but God wants to make it happen in another way.

We may write down a red-letter item, thinking that’s the only way it could happen. But we can’t get too closed-minded about how we think God needs to work. God may have another plan. Which is why it’s so important to be listening for his voice and guidance. We need to pay attention to opportunities around us that God opens. He knows exactly how to get you where he wants you to be. And one touch of his favor can change everything in an instant. God can do in one moment what it would take you fifty years to do on your own.

So we pray, pay attention, and listen.

If God asks you to do something that seems strange or even ridiculous, check what you heard against the Bible and seek counsel, but if they agree – go do it! God may be about to do a miracle in your situation.

As we read in today's passage, God is always at work in the world around us. Often times, he’ll use people, events, and circumstances we never could have imagined to get us right to where we need to be. God can even use setbacks and negative circumstances to get us right where we need to be.

As you do what you can (black letter items), pray about what you can’t (red letter items), and pay attention to what’s happening around you, you’ll see God’s work. You’ll see him bring the vision he put in your heart to pass. You’ll see him do impossible things. As you start to walk in the blessing of the dream he that me made a reality, you’ll know it was all him who did it – start to finish. All you had to do was be a good steward of what he gave you.

Get out there and be bold. Go after the vision God placed in your heart!

This reading plan is based on the book Vision Map: Charting a Step-by-Step Course for Your Biggest Hopes and Dreams by Joël Malm.