Clear vision, 20/20 vision, is often the difference between being lost in a blurry fog and knowing precisely how to stay on the path toward your destination.
Vision is all about next steps toward a preferred future. 20/20 vision provides the big picture, wide angle view, taking in 180 degrees in all directions to offer perspective and observe the lay of the land before you. At the same time, it helps you focus on the smallest detail at hand to safely and securely take the next step in the right direction.
Born in India, Rudyard Kipling lived a life of adventure, and wrote about them in works that live on in his Jungle Book and countless poems and short stories. In 1907 he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the youngest such recipient at the time. Yet he was plagued with poor vision that kept him from entering the military at the age of 16. What he lacked in sight, he made up for through insight and careful observation. More than a century ago, he penned these words about the invention of the airplane:
“We are at the opening verse of the opening page of the chapter of endless possibilities.”
Kipling had a great imagination and told compelling stories. Still, he could not have imagined the details of how air and space travel would bring significant change in terms of speed, distance and power for good and evil. Those changes would impact the everyday lives of people by making what seemed impossible to all prior generations not only possible but ordinary to their successors. Kipling could clearly see infinite possibilities, the details of which were beyond his own imagination. Our stories are being lived in the daily details and reality of that vision.
2020 opens the door to not only a new year, but a new decade full of endless possibilities. Like a road covered in pristine snow, unmarked by the tracks of time, you will leave your footprints for others to follow. Where they lead? What are your hopes, dreams, and vision for 2020 and beyond?
Whatever you imagine, may I suggest one other possibility? As you contemplate 2020, enlist the assistance of the God of endless possibilities. Travel with Jesus, who said “Anything is possible if a person believes” and “Humanly speaking it is impossible. But not with God. Anything is possible with God.” (Mark 9:23; 10:27)
You may not have been blessed with the clarity of 20/20 vision. But faith in Jesus can bring clarity to your path and joy to your journey. There was a time after Jesus’ crucifixion when his disciples lacked a clear understanding of the resurrection. They were fearful, discouraged and confused. Then Jesus appeared and spoke peace to their troubled hearts, while showing them his pierced hands and feet. The apostle John reports, “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord!” (John 20:20) That is the essence of 20/20 vision!
How do we maintain that joyful sunshine perspective when times are dark? That is our challenge. Eighty years ago, in December 1939, the world was at the brink of what would become World War II, and King George of England delivered a speech to his nation that had already entered into that war, and found itself reeling from the German attacks. Uncertainty and fear held the nation in its grip. Thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth (now Queen Elizabeth), brought an obscure poem to her father’s attention as he prepared his speech. It was written by British author Minnie Louise Haskins, published in 1908, and titled, “God Knows.”
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand in the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
Whatever the new year and decade bring, you can enter it with hope and joy. Remember, “You are at the opening verse of the opening page of the chapter of endless possibilities!”
©2020 Don Detrick