Show me your vision

“Show me your vision, and I’ll show you your future.”- South Korean Pastor David Yonggi Cho

Mark Batterson continues Chapter 15 of The Circle Maker with the observation that “vision starts with visualization.”  He cites a 1995 study by Alvaro Pascual indicating that the brain’s motor cortex is just as active mentally rehearsing a five-finger piano exercise as it is during actual physical practice.

Mental rehearsal literally is mind over matter.  At a minimum, it’s equal to physical practice- and may be more important.  Mark explains:

“When you dream, your mind forms a mental image that becomes both a picture of and a map to your destiny.  That picture of the future is one dimension of faith, and the way you frame it is by circling it in prayer.”

Goal-setting serves an important purpose.  Goals are the GPS that gets you to the destination of your dreams.  Goals are unique to each individual, reflecting one’s unique personality and passions.  Everyone arrives at their goals via different avenues.  Mark offers ten steps to goal-setting to help  guide you as you circle your life goals.  The first two steps are presented today.

1.  Start with prayer.  Mark emphasizes prayer is the best way to jump-start the goal-setting process.  Setting your goals in the context of prayer raises the likelihood that those goals will glorify God.  Unless your goals glorify God, they aren’t worth setting.

2.  Check your motives.  Mark encourages you to examine your motives with total honesty.  Be certain your goals are God-glorifying.  Mark writes: “. . . you make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.”

Today’s question: If you were asked “show me your vision,” what specific goals would you describe to achieve your dream?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “A stock clerk with a goal”

 

Show me your vision

Second-order change

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were on when we created them.”- Albert Einstein

“Vision starts with visualization.”- Mark Batterson

In Chapter 12 (“The Rule Breaker”) of The Grave Robber, Mark Batterson observes that Jesus chose to heal the invalid by the Bethesda pool on the Sabbath knowing it would rile up the Pharisees.  By trying to keep what they thought was the letter of the law, the Pharisees broke the spirit of the law.  There’s a world of difference between following Jesus and following man-made rules.  Sometimes we have to break the rules to experience the miraculous.

Mark states that, according to cybernetic theory, there are two types of change:

1.  First-order change is behavioral- it’s doing things differently (matter over mind).

2.  Second-order change is conceptual- it’s seeing things differently (mind over matter).

Mark posits that most of our problems are perceptual: “The solution isn’t doing something different.  It’s thinking about the problem differently.”

Jesus changed the invalid’s life by changing the rules.  Whereas convergent thinking looks for one right answer, divergent thinking comes up with multiple solutions to a problem.  Mark explains:

“Divergent IQ is the ability to look at the natural and see the supernatural.  It also goes by another name when anointed by the Spirit of God: faith.”

Today’s question: Following your vocation loss, has first-order change or second-order change characterized your thinking?  Please share.

Tomorrow’s blog: “Critical realism”

Second-order change