"Where there is no vision, people perish." - Proverbs 29:18

Thirty-nine years ago, I was working on a railroad in what is now called Lake Nona, eating my lunch and leaning back against an old cabbage palm in the middle of Florida wilderness. That ordinary moment became my burning bush.

God has always spoken to me through what I call word pictures. When someone says "little red car," you immediately get a picture in your mind of a red car. It's the phraseology combined with the image that rises up in your spirit. That particular day, I heard something rise up in me: "Lift up your head."

I learned long ago that obedience is better than sacrifice. When you obey God, there's normally a step that comes after it if you follow through. So I did what I was told. I lifted up my head, and when I did, I heard the Lord say to me, "Everything you see before you, I have given to you."

Now, I interpreted that correctly because I was a person who had sought the Lord for many years and worked for the Lord for many years. I understood that God was planting me somewhere and showing me where it was. I turned to my boss and asked, "Where are we? What is all of that out there?" He said, "That out there is St. Cloud," and added a couple of other things about St. Cloud that I won't repeat. But he said, "You can have it."

All I knew was that it was an area called St. Cloud. I knew that God had spoken to me and given me somewhat of a mandate or mantle that I would carry for a region. Today I want to talk to you about vision,  because there's power in vision when that vision is spoken to you by God Almighty.

Vision: The Eyes of Your Future

Vision is the eyes of the future. If you don't have vision, you really don't have eyes to view your future, whether you're building a great business, a great marriage, a great family, or any great enterprise. If you have no vision, not only do you not know where you're going, you cannot entice anyone else to go along with you because you don't know where you're going.

Vision helps you see through the fog of where you are right now. Maybe you feel like you're in a place of nothingness, barrenness , lack, and silence. No excitement at all, nothing to capture your interest. You wonder, "What's wrong with me? Where am I? What is happening to me?"

Vision gives you the eyes to see through the fog of failure, the fog of fatigue, the fog of frustration, the fog of futility, the fog of the flesh, and the fog of fear. If you don't have vision, you don't have the eyes to see through these things that are keeping you blinded to what God is trying to say.

Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where there is no vision, people perish." Why? Because they don't have  eyes of the future. They can't see through the fog of the moment, and therefore there is no future for them.

Created for Eternity

In Psalm 139, David said to God, "All the days that you ordained for me were written in your book before one of them ever came to pass." David was saying, "God, you knew me in eternity. You knew me before I was born. You knew me before the very first day that I lived. It was all written out in your book."

In Jeremiah 1:5, God said to Jeremiah, "Before I formed you, I knew you. And before you came forth from your mother's womb, I sanctified you and ordained you to be a prophet to the nations."

God knew us in eternity.  You're a pilgrim and a stranger in this land. Your soul was made in eternity, created for eternity, and created to live with God forever.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "God has made everything beautiful in its own time." You are beautiful because God made you beautiful in eternity. He's made your family beautiful, your business beautiful, your marriage beautiful. Everything - nothing is left out - is beautiful in its own time.

Five Principles of Vision Power

1. The Spark of Vision

Vision isn't just poured out on you all at once. It begins with a spark. A spark is the process of igniting an ember. The spark ignites an ember, then you blow on the ember and give it oxygen. As it begins to catch up, you put straw or dried grass on it and it catches into a little flame. You don't pile big pieces of wood on a little flame - you get little small sticks until it becomes a full-blown fire that can handle big logs.

That's the way vision is. Vision is incremental. Vision is always an impartation that is unfolding. Vision is like a brick layer laying brick, one brick at a time. You might look at him in the morning and think he's accomplishing nothing, but you come back in the afternoon and there's an entire wall there.

Here's something important to remember: I wasn't out on that railroad searching for the will of God, but the will of God came searching for me. I got my burning bush on the railroad. God spoke to me out of my daily, ordinary life.

Moses wasn't up on Mount Horeb searching for the will of God - he was taking care of Jethro's sheep when he saw the burning bush. David was taking care of sheep when Samuel came to anoint him king. Elisha was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen when Elijah threw a mantle around his neck.

Vision begins not in the loud thunder and lightning, but in quietness, silence, and solitude. It's not spectacular; it's ordinary and common. Out of what you do and your faithfulness to what you do, God calls you up higher.

The principle is this: Vision is not born from what you see, but vision is born from who speaks it into your heart. It's born from God speaking that vision into your heart.

2. Perseverance

Perseverance is building through the difficulties, challenges, trials, and winds of life that blow. You have to persevere.  My 39 years at City of Life haven't been easy going, playing golf every day. That's not what success looks like or what greatness looks like.

There's a promised land that God has promised each one of us, but to get there, you've got to go through a wilderness. You've got the promise, you've got the provision, and right sandwiched in the middle is the problem that teaches you the principles you're going to need to know to receive the provision that God promised you originally.

The cost of legacy is perseverance. You're going to have to persevere when the crowd thins, when money tightens, when dreams seem delayed. What God is doing is building your testimony so you can say, "I remember when I had nothing and was looking out into nothing, but God spoke."

When I started this church, I didn't know anybody, so I picked four or five guys to be on a temporary board. After our first meeting, one wealthy man got up and said, "I just don't think you're pastor material." I said to myself, "I know what God said. My yes is louder than your no."

Your yes has to be louder than everyone else's no. For everything we've ever done here in this church, I got a symphony of nos. Your yes must be louder than their no.

3. Legacy in Motion

Vision is about legacy in motion. Legacy is not what you leave behind - it's not buildings, property, or material things. Legacy is what you set in motion so that those who are with you and come behind you can take that vision and run with it and keep that vision alive.

Legacy is secured only when it is carried forward by the next generation. Legacy must be intentional. It must be spoken, lived, and demonstrated. Legacy does not simply build for today, but legacy builds to outlive itself.

Proverbs 13:22 says, "A good man leaves an inheritance for his children's children." He leaves them something they can wrap their arms around and run the race of life with vigor, energy, and excitement because they have a clear understanding of what their family and family values are all about.

4. The Role of Your Spouse

God gave me a vision and spoke it to me, but I had a wife. Friday, May 30, 2025, represents 55 years that I've been in ministry with Janis. Thirty-nine of them have been here.

They say that behind every great man is a great woman, but Janis never stood behind me. She walks beside me in elegance. She walks in brilliance, grace, and power. She is an educator, psychologist, musician, songwriter, singer, worship leader, and one of the best teachers I've ever heard. She's the wisdom, the voice, the melody, the song of my life.

God gave me a vision. I was the vision bearer, and I needed a vision sharer to come alongside me and take 50% of that vision (sometimes way more than 50%) and help me carry it along.

5. The Prophetic Challenge: Lift Up Your Head Again

Here's the prophetic challenge: It's time to lift up your head again. God told me originally, "Lift up your head," and I'm telling the church it's time to lift up your head again.

He's given you things to carry. He's brought you to this church and planted you here. You have your life, marriage, family, businesses, vocation, and career, but it's time to lift up your head again.

What God said originally, the Spirit is saying now: "Lift up your head again. There's still more." Don't settle for what you're carrying now and believe that's it. There's more. Your legacy is not complete - your legacy is compounding. The seeds planted are still producing fruit. Your influence is now generational.

You are not ending, you are multiplying. You are still a visionary, still a builder, still the root of a tree that is bearing multi-generational fruit.

Write the Vision

Habakkuk 2:2-3 says, "Write the vision and make it plain upon tablets so that he may run that reads it." I went home that day after the railroad and wrote it down. I've got hundreds of little manuscript books in my library, all handwritten. When someone asked what all these little books were, I said, "That's my life. That's wherever I was when that book was written and what God was saying to me at that particular time."

Write the vision down so that those who read it can run with it. Your family and those around you can catch the vision you have and run with that vision just like you're running with it.

Stay Faithful in Railroad Moments

Stay faithful in the obscure moments when nobody else is looking or knows you or sees you, and it seems like you're in the middle of nothingness. Remember this: railroad moments matter. It may be your moment where you're isolated, staring into nothing, eating your lunch out of a paper bag, but you don't realize that your burning bush is just a few feet away.

The eyes of your future are about to clear away the fog in your life. The promise that God made has a provision. You've been in the middle - the problem - learning the principles you'll need to know to get that provision that God promised you.

Build something that your children and grandchildren can stand on. Let this vision be one that you write so that he who reads it may run with it.

Vision power is the fuel of your soul, the compass that determines your steps, and heaven's preview of the upcoming story of your life. Lift up your head again and see what God wants to place in your heart as you move forward in His purpose for your life.