Navigating Teenage RebellionSampel

Day 10: Death of the Vision

There are blessings on the other side of brokenness. My journey through the many years of teenage rebellion changed our family in such beautiful and profound ways, I would never want to go back to the woman I was before. The season of trial brought about the “perfecting of our character” as we yielded to God’s work in us during the hardship. 

The Bible tells of the many “deaths of vision” Joseph walked through. After Joseph’s early dream/vision of his brothers bowing down, he found himself in a pit (death#1), then sold as a slave (death #2), then falsely accused (death #3), then jailed (death #4), then his clothes were ripped off (death #5), etc. But the Word makes it clear that “God was WITH Joseph.” And He was orchestrating a much bigger story than Joseph could hope or imagine or understand. These were the truths I clung to as I walked through my own multiple deaths of vision.

God peeled away my fingers from control of my children. I realized that I was not in charge. Bill Johnson states, “In order to have a peace that surpasses all understanding, you have to give up your right to understand.” With each death of vision, I came to rest in the knowledge that God was with me and that He was bigger than the circumstances we were going through. I was drawn into a deeper knowledge of the sovereignty of my good, good Father. I wanted His will, His way, more than ever. The death of vision is a gift if we choose to walk through it in surrender to God’s greater will and purpose.