Vision vs Revelation

I just finished reading the book Me, Myself and Bob by Phil Vischer.  If you do not know, Phil Vischer is the creater of VeggieTales.  This book tells the story of the rise (and fall) of Veggie Tales and Big Idea.  I had not realized this before reading the book, but Big Idea went bankrupt after the Jonah VeggieTale movie bankrupt.  I highly recommend this book, especially for the veggie lovers out there!

At the end of the book, Phil Vischer reflects on everything he learned through the experience.

I cannot help but since the Veggie Tale song:  “And so what we have learned applies to our lives today and God has a lot to say in his book!”

Vischer went through a lot of emotional, and spiritual ups and downs along with the ups and downs of his company.  He had a huge dream and vision for VeggieTales and Big Idea.  He got to experience his dream being given to him, and then taken away.  As he reflects on this, he uses thoughts from many different authors and speakers.  Two thoughts that stuck out to me in particular.

The first was that sometimes in the Bible, God takes away your dream, or threatens to, in order to see if you will still choose him.  Think Abraham and Isaac.  Abraham had dreamed of having a son, well any child for that matter, and just when he thought it was hopeless, there he was.  There was his dream, in his arms, and God asked him to sacrifice it.  Abraham showed God that he would still choose him over his dream.

The other thing that one speaker had said that really stood out to Vischer, and myself, was this:  Christians should not have vision, they should have revelation.  At first I was not sure how I felt about this, and to tell you the truth I am still wrestling with it, but it does seem to make sense.  Vision is what we want to do, even if it is for God’s kingdom, it is still our dream.  Revelation comes from God.  If find this thought very interesting, and honestly hard for me to deal with.  It makes me wonder, what dreams or visions do I have for the future that are not revelations from God.

Visher says that at one point after bankruptcy someone had asked him where he hoped to see himself in 5-10 years, the stereotypical interview question.  They had asked him for his vision, and since he had just wrestled through this vision/revelation idea, he answered with, “Living in the middle of God’s will.”  I think that is an awesome answer to that question and leaves it all up to God to reveal his plans for you.  And this way, whatever God reveals cannot get in the way of your own dreams, so you are free to follow him.

 

 

After the holidays

I hope all of you enjoyed your Christmas holiday and time with your family.  I know I did.  What I did not enjoy was getting the flu after all of the holidays.  Even though I did not have the Christmas break I am used to, this being my first Christmas season with a real person job, I did get to do some relaxing and a good bit of reading.  I read a couple books on church marketing and diligently took notes so I could share my thoughts with you, and then in one of my cleaning sprees, misplaced them.  So while I continue to look for them I wanted to ask you, did you read any thought-provoking or just plain enjoyable books over the holidays?