Vision

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

“But he answered and said, it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4)

The above two verses explain the miracle that happened in our Village a few weeks ago. Once again we were instructed that we don’t live by seeking our needs first but by seeking His. We had also forgotten that the only real binding law on us is that of love. For a very long time we have had a problem getting much work done on our corporate workday. Workday in the Village consist of all the men and boys twice a month taking care of the physical needs of the land we live on. Sometimes the needs can be great, especially during late spring or early summer. There are almost 265 people who live on these beautiful 100 acres of west Tennessee hills, so we’re sort of like a small town. Driving through the gates you'll find of many of the same things you would find in any rural community.

There’s a town hall for important meetings through the week and on Sunday it's where we worship and praise our wonderful Father. There is a small library, grocery store, maintenance barn, stables for horses, petting farm, green houses, huge corporate gardens, roads, storage units, houses etc., etc.; all of which have their own peculiar needs and upkeep. Corporate workday is supposed to supply what Ray, our fulltime land manager, can’t get done during the week. Yet somehow, we lost our momentum and Saturdays became a drag. Men had a hard time wanting to do anything; with reasons ranging from the lack of preparations for workday, to just wanting to “chill out” on that day. After months of considerable exhortations to “do what you should”, we decided to get together and have a heart to heart talk about our responsibility to the land and our love for Ray.

 Our good Shepherd, through a couple of brothers, poured out His Spirit on us enabling us to understand that workday and loving Ray was the same thing. Talking about our love and respect for Ray and all he is doing on the land for us bordered on hypocrisy if we didn't do our part to help him. Pictures were shown of what Ray wanted to do to better our Village and how he was failing at it because he had no time to meet the land’s basic needs. Men listen and received the vision of what could happen if all of us were to see ourselves as the owners of the Village and not remain in our thinking…. just tenets. Truth is; we (each of us)actually are the real owners of the Village.

The workday we experienced that day was phenomenal; we literally did more in 3 hours than in the 3 previous consecutive workdays. By the end of the day we had accomplished more than we had in 3 months worth of workdays. Such is the power of vision.

What was equally amazing was driving around and observing the attitudes of the men working. Some brought their sons to work, some stayed longer than asked, and some after finishing their jobs came back and asked what else they could do and all of them were smiling. For the first time in a long time, they were enjoying the fellowship with each other.

I think the reason we aren’t always as happy as we could be, is that we lack vision and purpose. Vision is what often makes the “yoke easy and the burden light”. We tend to forget who we are and why we are here. Sometimes exhortations to “work harder” aren’t always the answer for men to rise up and do what they should do. Sometimes we need to be reminded that all things belong to us and we should start acting in this Life like landowners and not tenets.

“For all things are yours…whether the world or life or death, or things present, or things to come …all are yours, and you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s” (1 Corinthians 3: 21-23)







The next weekend we had everything ready for our Conference and God gave us a promise ... but that's another blog.

RCV Grandfather