How To Develop A Vision (Leighton Ford)

At Leighton Ford Ministries we ask the young men and women who join us to go through a process of observing, reflecting, and acting.

This threefold process was practiced by a Roman Catholic bishop in Belgium, who, following the two great world wars, took little orphan waifs off the streets to shepherd them. He would never tell them what to do; instead he taught them to read the Bible, to pray, and to ask God to show them how to do what He wanted them to do.

He would tell them to look around them and see what the needs were, to wait until God spoke to them, and then to do something about it.

This process can be a key to learning to see as Jesus does.

We must observe carefully and prayerfully where people are hurting and suffering and longing, and what God is doing in the world, until in our hearts we are drawn to an area which may be God’s vision for us.

We need to reflect on what we have observed, praying and reading, thinking and talking, and perhaps writing, until our sense of call begins to emerge and we see what it is that God would have us to do.

Then we must begin to act on that vision – even if it is just in small ways to begin with.

What about you?

Where are you in the process of discerning a vision for your life?

Where is God calling you to observe?

Upon what is he calling you to reflect?

Where is he calling you to act?

Leighton Ford