Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Proverbs 29:18 (06/08/23)
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TITLE: Sight, But No Vision | Previous Challenge Entry
By Linda Lawrence
06/14/23 -
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As a member of the television production crew, Carl was still without ‘vision’ but didn’t know it. The year was 1957, two years before Carl’s eyes were opened to God’s vision for His world and for Carl.
Carl’s sights were set on investment property, a Thunderbird, tailored wardrobe, financial security, upward mobility, and making a name for himself—a vision of his own success. Helen’s Keller’s words opened his eyes to the possibility of being mistaken about his life’s goals. Perhaps there was something more, something less temporal, something eternal to be seeking.
Acquisitions and accomplishments were not filling him up as he thought they would. Keller’s unusual vocal inflection continued echoing a prophetic message to him in his growing emptiness, long after her visit to the set of The Miracle Worker.
“It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision . . . It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision . . . It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision . . . ”
Carl’s lack of vision would be healed when he reached for a neglected Bible and searched for God on his knees. Soon after, rather than seeing God, he heard Him call his name. “Carl, now I can use you.”
The vision for his future was still to be revealed, but it was evident God had chosen him for something. And Carl made the deliberate choice to say yes to being one of the chosen to eternal Life—God’s way and ways! From here on he would be seeing and hearing through the gift of opened spiritual eyes and ears—alert to the Presence of God around the world.
The particular way of seeing that Carl was called to develop was to see international turmoil and tragedies as crisis opportunities for people to turn to God and to be used to glorify God. Areas of darkness in the world were a call to him to go, to see, to investigate what God was doing in that darkness. What rays of Light could be found? Where were the remnants of people walking in God’s laws?
Through the following years, the sorrow and suffering my husband witnessed gave him recurring nightmares. However, his joy came through the privilege of sharing the stories he was told, writing book, and being a witness to the sustaining power of God.
In country after country he met Jesus’ followers who had a clear vision of the Kingdom of God: In Angola, China, Cambodia, India, Mexico, Mozambique, Russia, Rwanda. Men and women who experienced labor camps as Bible School and brothers and sisters willing to lay down their lives for one another. But most of all—God revealing His heart. Their trust in what Jesus taught about suffering kept their faith from perishing—especially when what men mean for evil, God uses for good.
For Carl, the proverb which says ”Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he,” was more than a poetic statement of truth. Carl discovered it to be an ongoing, living testimony of the vision and wisdom of God for a perishing world.
Prov. 29:18 KJV
This account is a companion Challenge piece to:
The Goodwill Drop-Off
Mao’s Madness Magnifies Messiah’s Mercy
Tasting Tears
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