Vision

What if I haven't had a vision? In today's passage, Paul is talking about his experience on the road to Damascus. A light, brighter than the sun, bright enough to blind him, blazes in the sky, and he hears an audible voice telling him to preach salvation to the Gentiles. That hasn't happened to me, and I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to wait for something similar. Still, Oswald admonishes that we are too quick to move into practical work: "Let God fling you out, and do not go until He goes." What does that mean?

The application to major life decisions is obvious -- in career choice, marriage, job changes, moving, having children -- but what about the sixty seconds of every minute and the sixty minutes of every hour of which Oswald writes? My life is brim full of practical work that demands to be done, and I do not have a vision tailored specifically to Barbara Comito. God has not written my marching orders in the sky or spoken outloud or even come to me in a dream. How do I stem the spiritual leakage without a personal vision?

Pursue him. That's all I have for now. Persistently, doggedly pursue him. Not just during this morning devotional time, but throughout the day. My vision is Christ crucified, the body and the blood, and as Oswald wrote a few days ago, I must bring the heavenly vision down "into flesh and blood actualities and work it out through the fingertips." When I search for words, when I deal with my boss, when I vacuum the floor, when I listen to my daughter, when I argue for what I believe is right . . . somehow in all these things I must operate from the premise that his body and his blood runs through me.