Dear Friends,

The first of Rev Norman Brown’s points at our elders’ day away in the autumn was that, ‘Vision gets us onto God’s programme and off our own!’  God wants us to see a future that is preferred to the present.

His second point was this–
‘Vision is to have dreams that are bigger than our memories.’

This was a lesson the people of God had to learn in the wilderness after leaving Egypt with Moses.  God had given them a great vision of being His own people and being placed by Him in a land ‘flowing with milk and honey.’  He had already added substantial weight to this vision by the miracles that brought them out of Egypt and through the Red Sea.  But as soon as their bellies began to rumble they started to think back to Egypt and the food they had there.  Then they wanted to return.  They lost sight of the vision.  God never promised the way to the fulfilled vision would be easy but the vision was better than the past.

Memory keeps us in the past but vision takes us into the future.
‘Vision is to have dreams that are bigger than our memories.’

As we face the matter of our future accommodation issues we need a vision, we need to have dreams that are bigger than our memories.  Memories lock us into the past but vision takes us into the future. 

John Stott said that vision begins with a holy discontent with the way things are.  God wants us to walk with Him into the future.  There are no promises that walking with God into the future will be easy or even comfortable, but it is exciting.  Imagine the excitement in this local area when the new congregation of Legacurry was born.  Can we share that same excitement as we dream Kingdom dreams that are bigger than our memories?

Yours in Christ,
Bobby Liddle