Identity

Whether you’re raring to go at the start of this New Year, wrestling with difficult issues, or both, now is a good time to sharpen your vision.

Vision Pay Binoculars — For a clearer vision, turn to God
Image © istockphoto.com

Over the past five years, along with many highpoints, I’ve experienced several setbacks. I’ve taken hits with family health, with finances and in business. Some dreams were put on hold, but I’m seeing the turnarounds.

What motivates me is the certain knowledge that God will sustain me in all circumstances and, with my co-operation, enable what he has placed and will place on my heart.

How do you and I rekindle the fire of past visions or ignite new ones? ‘Having sorrow’ in his heart and feeling distant from God as he faces one of his hardest trials, King David pleads for revelation:

Consider and hear me, O Lord my God;
Enlighten my eyes.

Knowing well the solution to his plight, he goes on:

But I have trusted in Your mercy;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.¹

Here are five keys, unpacked from these lines and my own experience, for overcoming trials and re-vitalising the vision:

1. Revelation – look upwards

I am clear about my God-given vision, and am sure that he will supply me with everything I need to see it happen. I also know that he will meet my every need today – not just the big picture stuff.

In asking ‘enlighten my eyes,’ I don’t believe David was looking for more head knowledge, but for his eyes to be opened supernaturally by revelation directly from the Holy Spirit.

For a clearer vision, turn to God – in business, in ministry, in family life, community or finances. He will reveal it to you in ways you don’t always expect.

2. Remembrance – look back in gratitude

Whether you aim to reach a particular goal or overcome an obstacle this year, recall with gratitude the times when God brought you through a major impasse or favoured you. When he ‘dealt bountifully with you.’

I recall having a hunch after a lean spell in business several years ago to call a former local authority client I hadn’t spoken to for a year or so. As she took my call she was astonished: “That’s really weird! I was just about to phone you today.” That call led to a major contract that would then be replicated by three other Scottish local authorities. I thank God for my hunch – and the four contracts. If he did it before, he’ll do it again.

3. Reliance – look to and trust God

There’s a strand of popular culture which encourages people to be wholly self-reliant and proclaims the mantra: ‘I can have it all.’ That’s fine for a time, when the job’s going well, you’re in rude health and the new car is in the driveway. But where do you turn when the wheels come off through reduced income, redundancy, workplace pressures, conflicts or illness? Christian culture encourages God-reliance and declares truths such as: ‘We are more than a conquerors though him who loved us’² and ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’³ Not literally anything, but those things he intends for us personally and equips us for.

4. Rejoicing – look forward in expectation

Just because your dream has perhaps been deferred, don’t defer the hope that will help you to see it realised. Thank God in advance for the breakthroughs that you want to see in your life, your business, your ministry, your family and community; praise him now for the coming fulfilment of the vision he has ‘enlightened your eyes’ with.

5. Reconnection – look to the Life within you

At the heart of new covenant faith is living life in connection with the living God – within us. The apostle Paul describes this ‘once hidden mystery’ as:

Christ in you, the hope of glory† (emphasis mine)

The secret of Christian living is the glorious life and hope of Jesus himself within you. That truth in itself – the Truth himself – keeps my flame burning. May your flame burn brightly in the year ahead too.

Question: what has been put on hold in your life that you feel can now be re-activated and what’s your next step?

¹ Psalm 13:3,4-6 NKJV ² Romans 8:37 NIV

³ Philippians 4:13 NKJV † Colossians 1:27 NIV

First posted in January 2013

I recalled this morning an image of a fountain that came to mind one day last autumn when I’d obviously been thinking about coping with my responsibilities towards younger and older family members.

At the time, refusing to identify with a thought moments before, I journaled, “I’m not in the sandwich generation, hemmed in by both sides.” I chose a better phrase to partner with: “I’m in the cascade generation, flowing with heaven from God’s perspective onto those in older and younger generations who need love and power.”

New generation: out of the sandwich and into the flow!

It’s all too easy when under pressure to take on a false sense of identity that puts more emphasis on the burdens than on the answer that lightens the load, both for you and me and the generations around us.

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”¹

This spring of water brings refreshment and restoration for ourselves, but also a flow of hope, healing and creative solutions for the individuals, families and communities whose lives we touch.

We’re told in the same story that the woman left behind her water jar at the well – on one level a symbol of the burdens she carried? – and went back to town to spread the news about Jesus, and drew people to him. Some would come to drink the supernatural living water of his Spirit for themselves, then pass it on to others in the region.

Immediately after writing these reflections this morning, the first song I heard as I turned on my car stereo was Matt Redman’s We Are The Free, in which the chorus ends with the line, “We are the free, the freedom generation.” Absolutely!

If you’re in need of refreshment this week amid competing pressures, just ask Jesus for a drink! It’s free, and we’re a generation that’s set free from the labels and identities that the voice of oppression would put on us.

¹ John 4:13

5 keys to re-focus your vision for this year

Which generation describes your identity?