Your Vision Will Shape Your Life

Discover how your vision—like Paul’s—can shape your life with hope, purpose, and joy, no matter your circumstances.

Paul could have despaired. In his situation, many of us would have. 

Imagine spending years on a relentless mission to spread the gospel throughout the Gentile world, and then experiencing all of this: One of your favorite churches is struggling; you’re under house arrest and can’t go anywhere; preachers with impure motives are exploiting your absence to promote their own ministries for personal gain; and, to top it all off, you think you might soon be executed.

Paul mentions all of these pressures in the first chapter of his letter to the Philippians, and we might wonder how he coped with them with so much hope. In his situation, we could easily envision being filled with fear, anxiety, and discouragement. But Paul wasn’t. Why not?

Paul clearly wasn’t living in denial. He was aware of how distressing any of these situations might be. But he didn’t seem overly focused on them. Somehow, some way, he was living above them. He could see the reality behind the scenes, and that vision filled him with joy.

Seeing the Unseen Reality

Notice all the ways Paul reads between the lines of his circumstances:

• Those struggling believers? Sure, they have some growing to do, but “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

• His imprisonment? In spite of outward appearances, it “has actually served to advance the gospel” (1:12).

• Those self-focused preachers? Okay, maybe their motives are way out of line, but “the important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached” (1:18). 

• That impending execution? Maybe it will happen, maybe not, but it’s a win-win situation because “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (1:21).

In every case, Paul chose a positive vision of his situation—not wishful thinking but a strong sense of his calling, the revelation he’d been given, and God’s faithfulness. He anchored himself in the assumption that God was powerfully at work in his life and circumstances, no matter how things appeared, and therefore any sense of futility and frustration didn’t reflect reality. He understood that whatever vision we hold in our hearts will powerfully and profoundly shape our lives.

Three Ways to Raise Your Vision

To experience Paul’s kind of joy, we’ll have to live with his kind of vision. The good news is that we can cultivate it in several ways. Here are three to start with:

1. Ask the right questions. In a trial or crisis, we instinctively ask, “Lord, why is this happening?” God rarely answers that question. Try these instead: “Lord, what do you want to do in this situation? How do you want to show up here? How do you want to use this situation and my life to demonstrate your goodness—your power, provision, protection, deliverance, healing, comfort, compassion, or strength?” Those will open your eyes to a world of possibilities—and invite him into them.

2. Live with a sense of purpose. God wants you to be fulfilled, but he doesn’t want you to focus on your fulfillment (or on how your circumstances are thwarting it). You have a higher calling to demonstrate his character and nature in every relationship and every situation in life. Whatever you’re going through, however you or your loved ones may be struggling, he has a purpose for you and the people around you. Living with that sense of purpose will pull you forward into it.

3. Choose hope. In nearly every situation in our lives, we can envision either negative or positive outcomes. Past experiences have trained many of us to expect disappointment, but God is all about fruitfulness, not futility and frustration. Refuse to give in to discouragement. Instead, choose to see growth and flourishing by expecting some aspect of his goodness to come out of everything you experience.

Prepare to Be Transformed

You’ll need to be relentless in these perspectives because, for most of us, they don’t come naturally. But they do come eventually when we apply a bit of holy stubbornness in living them out. 

Choose daily to believe that God is always bringing about something good in your life and the lives of your loved ones. 

Fix your eyes on his faithfulness, both to you and to his own plans. 

Let that vision grow, and it will lift you higher in every situation you face.

Chris Tiegreen has touched the lives of millions of people through his twenty-seven books, his forty-plus study and discussion guides, his magazine and newspaper articles, and his collaborative projects. He has authored nine One Year devotionals, and his curricular and collaborative works have been translated into more than sixty languages.

New ways of seeing lead to new ways of being. Discover more about The See Series, accessible commentary paired with inspirational devotional insight, from beloved author Chris Tiegreen at https://christiegreen.com/index.php/see-series. Read scripture and see life with new eyes!