Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.                                       Proverbs 29:18  (KJV)

The word vision here is the same word used in Isaiah and Nahum to describe what God revealed to them about what was and what was to be.  

The word perish can also be translated chase or run wild, to be without restraint.  

This verse is not just for ministries looking to find their parameters or churches trying to figure out their niche. It is a truth that applies to young people attempting to discern their careers and life plans.  It is for parents as they make decisions for their children.  It is for the wealthy as they budget their money.  It is for the poor as they assess what their lives are actually rich in.  It is for every one who has a decision to make today.  

We might make those decisions based on any number of variables; what do I like, what do I want, what can I afford, what do I see as being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for me, for my family, for my bottom line, for humanity. All of those variables are moving scales of my own vision.  They are attempts at discerning for myself what would be good for me. And every aspect of my own vision must be relegated to a reliance on His.  If I desire to save myself from the chasing and perishing of Proverbs, the ‘vision’ I have to live with isn’t mine. When chatter of my vision is gone, I’m open to hear about His.

Isaiah can lend to our understanding here.  He saw ‘visions’ about Babylon. Babylon is one of two cities that have a role in the entire human story.  It shows up in Genesis 11 and is still around in Revelation 19.  And, yes, it is still around today. Isaiah’s vision was well into this historical city’s existence.  The story was already well under way.  It didn’t start with Isaiah, he just jumped into a story that already was.  

If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what He reveals, they are most blessed.                                                                                                                              Proverbs 29:18 (Message)

The decisions that we make are not made in a vacuum.  They affect other people, they are intertwined with all the world around us, and they influence the stories of others that are already being written.  

It is vital that we catch the vision.  It is imperative that we discern what God is already doing.  Without that, we flounder, we stumble, we become the walking perished.  

There will always be the temptation to cast our own vision, to make decisions that fall in line with what we see or desire or even expect of or for ourselves.  It’s like back seat drivers.  Everyone in the car that isn’t driving is quick to gauge what they would have done differently from the one who is driving.  We all want to be in that seat.  You know what you end up with if everybody is out on the road of life driving the way they see fit, taking the wheel on every issue in which they have an opinion?  Bumper cars.  If you make decisions based on your own vision for your life, you are a lone bumper car in that padded oval on the fairground of your days.  

God calls us to be a little less like the chaotic and destructive bumper cars and a bit more like the elegance and precision of synchronized swimmers.  There is a grand and unified design to life, not just our lives, all lives.  And when we discern the workings of God around us and join into that dance that is already in motion, we glide and we rhythmically sway in the eternal story of His glory.  We must find our place in what has long been established.  And our own designs for our lives and those of our children and families must not trump our attention to His.  

It isn’t hard to look around our country, even our homes at times, and see this bumper car mentality.  We collide, we crash, we cause damage, we end up with cuts and bruises and wounds that we won’t slow down enough to let heal.  

It’s the difference between life and perishing that we see what God is doing.  It is vital to true living that we catch His vision rather than cast our own.  There’s a dance that’s been going on for the ages and to crash into it recklessly damages us and all we encounter.  

Save that stumbling by seeing.  But we must not stop at seeing.  We must ‘attend.’ Relegate all other plans and desires and attend to that which He reveals.  It is then that we will be most blessed.