Going on a vision quest with God?
Sure. Why not? We all have a vision for our lives. But, is it God’s vision for our lives? Ah, now there’s the question!
I remember when I first began to read my bible with a searching heart.
I would read those verses in Jeremiah,
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. [11-13]
And I would wonder, “What does it look like to search for God with all your heart?”
I had always known that I had a vision for my life. I certainly thought I had a good idea of what would make me happy, but up until that point, it hadn’t occurred to me that God might have a vision for my life, too. One that might be very different from mine. I think I had always clung to the idea that God wanted to give me the desires of my heart, and since He obviously knew my heart, I just assumed we were on the same page vision-wise. After all, those verses say quite clearly God wants to give me a future and a hope, right?
I had lots of ideas about what that would look like for me.
So I thought, “Well all right then, let’s get going on this vision thing!”
There was just one little problem.
When I would read these promises I could see they were originally written to captives. Captives? That word made me edgy.
I also kept pondering the words, “The thoughts I think…” and I would wonder, “Are God’s thoughts and my thoughts one and the same?”
The more I “sought Him” the less sure I became about God’s vision versus my own. What if they weren’t the same? What if God wanted something for me that I didn’t want, then what?
My questions scared me, but I had to find the right answers, so I began searching my Bible.
I began to seek God’s thoughts.
What did God have to say about dreams and desires? Did He have “a vision” for me? And, would I like it, if it was drastically different from mine?
I had no idea then that this vision quest would stretch into decades, or that searching out the heart of God, would stretch into so many waiting days.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But in the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry. Habakkuk 2:3
