A Laser-Guided Focus:
The Redemptive Vision
Day Fifty-Five
Under the Influence
“Where there is no vision [no redemptive revelation of God], the people perish;…” Prov 29:18
During many of the United States military campaigns since the Gulf War first erupted in 1990 we have employed laser targeting for placing bombs on respective targets. Assets on the ground place a laser marker on that object, and the bomb is guided to that site – even to an exact place – by that laser marker. This allows for high accuracy in reaching the target, and the exact placement of the marker allows for maximum target destruction. Without laser guiding, the accuracy is much compromised.
In a similar way, having a redemptive vision of the Lord moves our own gaze from a natural perspective to a supernatural focus. We begin to look at and see what He is focusing on and seeing. Like the assist from the laser placement guides the bomb for target acquisition, the Lord trains His focus (and our hearts) on where He would have us come along-side Him in prayer or activity: where He would have us obligate our attention. As we then act in obedience to His leading, there is victory. For either destruction or for building up, as saints of the most-High God, unless we have His redemptive vision for where to place our focus – we are shooting blindly – simply according to our own natural leading.
Without the redemptive vision of the Lord, we cannot assess what is the important focus He has for this moment in time. Without His vision, we cannot even have an accurate cross-hair placement. Whether for prayer or for planning, we are instead taking our precious, limited warfare assets (read arrows, finances, time, etc.), and shooting them haphazardly into the sky – then praying they will strike pay-dirt. How ridiculous that makes us to think we would be effective in that manner. What archer would pick a target after already shooting? Our job is not simply to shoot our arrows (our prayers, our efforts), but it is in fact to employ them in obedience as the Lord leads. Then it will be established and succeed as the Lord says (Prov 16:3).
May we each come to the place where we corporately set our hearts and then our minds on what is above (the higher things). May we continue to behold in the word of God the glory of the Lord, and thus be transfigured into His very own image (therefore have His own focus and interest) in ever-increasing splendor. May we truly have His redemptive vision (an accurate picture of what He has done at the cross – that He has already redeemed us as His, and redeemed us for Himself). And may we commit and trust the focus of every work – even its origin, to obedience to and for Him and His leading. Then we will have success every time, hitting pay-dirt for His glory. It is He Who teaches our hands to war and our fingers to fight (Ps 144:1). Lord help us to focus on You, that you would focus us.
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