The Very Rev Albert Bogle draws on Paul’s story in the book of Acts in considering the importance of vision – and acting on it.

THE email title read: ‘Don’t Jump the Gun’.

I was replying to a friend who was weighing up the chances of a project succeeding.

I knew the chances of making it happen were slim but it was not impossible. Often it is the impossible ideas that God seems to pull off in front of our eyes.

It’s never easy to know where you put your energy and resources when time is short and resources are limited. But I believe that God stirs our hearts and gives us insights into what could be. It’s then that we need to understand the power of the vision and seek to embody the text in Hebrews 11:1 where the writer says: ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen’.

We need to be open to more visioncasters in the church and we also need vision-catchers. Paul was both a visioncatcher and a vision-caster. He was convinced he had to be obedient to the vision he had been given on the Damascus road. For him, the experience was no illusion or psychological trick. He had a real encounter with Jesus of Nazareth and his life was changed. It’s these personal encounters that no one can deny which create the passion to make a vision grow.

This is the reason why so many of our church leaders are being encouraged to spend time in prayer seeking to encounter the living God.

I love the passage in Acts 26 where Paul is described standing before the Governor Festus sharing the good news of the gospel. Festus listens to Paul and as he listens he can’t see a reason for Paul to be detained in prison. But Paul had exercised his right as a Roman citizen and had ‘appealed to Caesar’ while he had been detained under the previous Governor Felix. Now Festus had to send a charge sheet to Rome with Paul and he didn’t know with what to charge him, so he invites the Jewish puppet King Agrippa to listen and give him advice.

It’s a great little bit of dialogue in the book of Acts. You see something of the passion and backstory of Paul. He tells Festus and King Agrippa a great deal of his life story. It’s a fascinating story of how this persecutor of Christians ended up a follower of Jesus. And how it is his writings and influence that helped shape the theology of the first Christians. Paul would not be the last antagonist to Christianity to find himself converted. It is perhaps a dangerous thing to be too overtly outspoken against the things of God, he might just step in and silence you by revealing himself to you.

The line in the story I love is from the King James Version where Paul says about his change of heart: “Whereupon Oh King Agrippa I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision”. I love the response that Paul draws out from the King:

“Paul Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian?” And Paul answers to the effect, not only you do I want to persuade but all who will listen.

This surely is the calling and passion of all of us who follow Jesus. We are people with a vision to help others see who Jesus is. Almost, is not enough. Agrippa had a

We need to be open to more vision-casters in the church and we also need vision-catchers. Paul was both…

wonderful opportunity but he turned it down. He couldn’t bring himself to see that the Jewish professor in front of him had an amazing life-changing offer to give to him. Paul, of course, would not be daunted and he did go to Rome – and in doing so shaped the Christian church forever.

It’s hard to believe a vision. To know what is the right thing to do can be confusing. Over the years I’ve learned to wait and test the vision. Push doors and see if they open. Look to see if God brings like-minded people into your life. The Bible tells us that if we come with the right heart and the right approach of humility and expectation we will hear a voice say to us in our ear: ‘This is the way, walk in it.”

Taking time not to jump the gun but to listen is the way of the vision caster and dare I say it, the vision catcher. ¤