Vision: Pictures Say 1000 Words နမူနာ

All throughout the Bible, we see God giving His people dreams, and at the appointed time, He expounds on those dreams with vision. There are also times when He simply gives us a vision that isn’t accompanied by a dream first—Joseph versus Noah, for example. Joseph was given a dream of how he would rule and lead (see Gen. 37:1–11), and Noah was given a detailed vision of how exactly to build the ark (see Gen. 6:9–8:22). These men were given two distinct communications from God on how He wanted His heavenly agenda to be fulfilled among the earth—one through a dream and the other through a vision. Both were transformational. 

God knows how to impart His plans into each of us. He knows exactly how to share His agenda with His children. He gives us insight into His heavenly agenda in a way that we will respond, based on how He created us to hear and heed His voice. 

When I shared this concept with a friend, she responded with, “Well, what if I don’t have a vision?” I then had to remind her by saying, “Just the other day you told me about something you saw yourself doing but you weren’t doing yet. That’s a vision.” We both laughed at how obvious it was to identify the vision. It’s that simple. We just have to pay attention to where the vision is coming from and make sure it is aligning with God’s plans for our lives.

When Nehemiah was presented with this great vision, he immediately took inventory of the weight of it. Since vision is seeing into something greater, God’s vision is seeing even deeper into whatever the vision may be. Because of Nehemiah’s relationship with God, he was given God’s vision, which downloaded strategy from God. And Nehemiah was able to consider the who, what, when, where, why, and how of everything that was being placed in his hand. This awareness is what led him to cry out to God, because he had some inkling of what would be required of him if he took on this task.