Dear Faith Family, 

Where there is no vision, the people perish: But he that keepeth the law, happy is he, (Proverbs 29:18). 

It’s a mystery.  Stealing?  In a place of worship?!  One minute it was present and accounted for.  The next minute missing in action.  Did it simply find a hidden resting place?  Did it slip itself into someone else’s book bag?  Or, did someone strategically slip in under the radar during the closing prayer and sticky-finger it away?  In any case, my Bible is missing!  You heard correctly.  My Bible is gone! 

Solomon understood the gravity of just such a situation when he penned Proverbs 29:18. Without vision the people perish.  For lack of vison, the people perish.  What vision? 

The very Word of God is the vision.  Without God’s revelation of Himself to us, the Bible, people are without restraint.  The book of Judges was a great example of the chaos the lack of vision ensures.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes, (Judges 21:25). 

Without the Word of God, we are unrestrained, loosed, left to our own destruction.  In our culture we call that freedom!  Freedom to self-destruct.  How does that happen?  Without a clear revelation of our God, we are untethered.  Created by God in His image, we are tethered to who He is.  Loosed, untethered, from Him (without His Word) we have no true sense of eternal purpose or worth.  We are unrestrained! 

Translated, that means we are left to come up with our own sense of purpose and worth.  No wonder we strive to prove ourselves with who we know, how much we have or what we have accomplished.  Without the Word of God we have nothing concrete with which to govern our lives.  We are left with no real sense of direction.  So, we come up with a direction and flounder in the darkness of our self-made purpose. 

One more thought?  Even if we come up with a god, (you know – the kind of our own making – I think they’re called idols), a man-made god is really no god at all.  Instead, we find ourselves tethered to ourselves (the gods that we have made).  That’s starting to sound a bit weird and uncomfortable, I hope!  In fact, it leaves us freefalling rather than free. 

Solomon apparently understood that reality.  We’re in trouble without God.  And, without God’s Word (the vision) we are all, at best, unrestrained agnostics!  Yikes! 

Somebody needs to find my Bible!  Just sayin’!  You can drop it off on the front porch of the sanctuary.  We won’t dust for fingerprints.  I promise! 

Grateful for His Vision, 
Pastor Karl