Vision & The Architecture Of Participation
The Radical Truth About Vision Part 2
There's a huge difference between what the lifestyle gurus and self-help writers call 'vision' and what the Christian scriptures call 'vision'.
Proverbs 29:18 looks harmless enough at first glance: 'Without vision the people perish.' But dig a little under the surface, taking into account the original Hebrew language in which it was written, and you get something more like this: 'Where there are no redemptive revelations of God, the people lead undisciplined, unfruitful, wasted lives.'
We saw in the first part of this series that godly vision is, first of all, spiritual in nature; it represents much more than a goal-set, a wish-list or a to-do list. Goals are born out of human motivations; spiritual vision is born out of divine revelation.
Spiritual vision is above all else a revelation of God's nature, character and purposes. But godly vision is also:
2. Interactive
Game designers have a term for the idea of interactivity; they call it 'the architecture of participation.' It's built into all PC games; but it's also a part of receiving vision.
Isaiah 55:9-11 tells us that God's ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts soar above our thoughts. It then says that God's word, invested in us, never returns to him empty, or without a result; it always accomplishes the purpose for which God sent it out.
Then, in the very next line, it says that we will 'go out with joy and be led forth with peace…'
Sowing revelation into our hearts is God's part in the process. We don't initiate the revelation - he does. However, there is a part for us to play too - we must find ways to practically apply the revelation we've received.
Isaiah 55 indicates that, like a seed planted into the soil which 'provides seed for the sower and bread for the eater', God's word in us is mean to produce something.
Why does God share his higher thoughts with you? To invite you into a process of radical change that honours his name.
The prophetic individuals of the Old Testament, who had vision ahead of their time, didn't simply sit around on rocks all day contemplating the essential oneness of universe. For them, receiving revelation had profoundly practical implications. They acted on the vision they received and it then produced measurable changes in their world.
Abram, for example, received the revelation that God is 'more than enough, the All-Sufficient One' ('El Shaddai'). As he acted accordingly, that knowledge changed his life and led him to prosper in everything he did.
Joseph received the revelation that God unlocks dreams and opens up difficult matters. As he acted on his vision, he came to understand how to save nations from a terrible famine.
David received the revelation that God gives his people victory in battle. It led him to subdue all of Israel's enemies during his lifetime.
Revelation once received must be applied. Revelation without application leads to emotional frustration, mental stagnation, spiritual expiration.
In school, I enjoyed maths - to a point. It interested me to find that complex patterns underlie all of God's creation. But after a while, for me anyway, maths became a little predictable (sorry all you super-bright maths buffs out there!), because it reduced almost
everything to formulae.
History, on the other hand, told stories - stories that involved the choices of flesh-and-blood human beings, with all their capacity for comedy, high drama and even tragedy.
Spiritual vision works more like a story than a formula. Through Christ, God re-writes the plotline of our lives and we each become part of God's great story.
But it's a story in which we are not just characters but co-authors. As Christians, we believe in destiny, but not fate. What's the difference?
Imagine a movie set where the director is a malevolent dictator. Now, imagine you're one of the star actors. You're creative and very experienced; you have a lot to bring to the part. But you find that the action in every scene is totally proscribed by the director; he leaves you no room to express yourself. That's fate.
Now, imagine the same movie set where the director is a benevolent mentor. He gives you a basic script and a picture of where he wants you to end up, but he allows space for you to bring something to the part, to show your potential by helping to shape the character and story. That's destiny.
It's what the modern game-engineers call 'the architecture of participation'. In computer and Internet gaming, players don't just take part in the game, they actually change the process as they do. They bring something to the underlying structure, helping to build on the basic story.
When you seek God for revelation, and begin to see new vision, the first question you should ask is: 'What does God want me to change? How does God want me to apply this new knowledge in my world?'
The change produced by the vision will always honour his name. God's purpose in giving me vision is way bigger than me.
Vision doesn't come to make me look good - it comes to make God look good. Isaiah 55:13 tells us that God's investment of his word in us is 'for the Lord's renown'. If you like, vision comes to make God's name great or, as I put it in one of my books, to make God famous.
Romans chapter one tells us that when we lose sight of who God is, we trivialise ourselves. God wants to be well-known not for his sake - he doesn't have an ego problem - but for our sake.
If we lose sight of the nature and character of the one in whose image we are made, we lose sight of our potential.
Now, this has implications not just for individuals, but for entire societies.
In my book 'Five Big Ideas', I talk about technological pragmatism, which is behind much of the forward march of science today. This concept says, 'if a thing can be done, it should be done; if it is technologically possible it's probably also the right thing to do.'
Contrary to popular opinion in some quarters, true Christian faith doesn't call for a halt to progress. It doesn't demand that we abandon the benefits of science and sink back into some imagined safety-bubble of the past.
On the contrary, the scriptures say that 'the just shall live by faith', which is the opposite of 'shrinking back in fear.'
Christians have often been at the forefront of new scientific discoveries and techniques. Curiosity is a good thing, pushing us into new frontiers; it is an expression of the image of God within us.
Christian faith does, however, asks that we act with a sense of accountability to Someone higher than ourselves. And that pause long enough to think through the implications of our choices and technologies on generations still to come.
According to the Bible, God is our ultimate, 'gold' standard of all that is good, pure, right, just and compassionate. If we lose sight of him, we end up with technology without ultimate truth, mass communication without real connection and great education without great ethics. We end up with, in the words of philosopher Jacques Ellul, 'faster machines that take us nowhere.'
Our culture needs people who have more than motivations, goals and wish-lists to offer. It needs leaders who are recipients of vision from a higher place, spiritual revelation which reminds us who we really were designed to be. It needs leaders, what's more, who will apply that revelation in response to real-world issues and challenges, so that they produce change in line with God's preferred future.
On October 31, 1517, a little known German Monk nailed a document to the wooden doors of the castle church in a university town called Wittenberg. Until then, nobody had heard of Martin Luther. In this document, he outlined 95 objections to the practices of the Roman Catholic Church, the most powerful institution in the world at the time.
Those statements led not only to a revolution in theology; they also brought about radical changes in the way that many European societies were structured. They paved the way, in fact, for many of the social freedoms we take for granted today.
Take liberal democracy, for example. The Greek upper classes were the first to experiment with democracy but they had no intention of letting everyone join in: democracy was for the 'elites only'. It wasn't until Christian Reformers, inspired by people like Luther, emphasised the equality of every individual under God, that democracy had a shot at becoming truly democratic.
Luther's personal revelation, or vision, was that 'the just are saved through faith (not good works).' This revelation came to him as he read the book of Romans.
Yet it was only when Luther got interactive with the vision, when he applied it in challenging the wrongs of his church and society, that the world was changed. God was honoured by one man's application of a divine revelation.
You can do the same thing! What revelation have you received? What will you do with it right now?
Copyright Mal Fletcher 2008
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