Vision

​Last week, I came home one night with a sour attitude.  I suspect I was not alone.  What was unusual about this occasion was that I actually contemplated what had put me in such a funk.  Actually, the answer was quite simple.  A very negative person cornered me and orally festered in the presence of others for thirty minutes venom towards a coworker he despised.  I could not get away fast enough.  In truth, I was infected.  My cheery spirit was trampled by a bitter person’s slander.  I thought of how one bad apple can ruin a barrel of good apples. That analogy made good sense.  

​The next morning this same individual spotted me and said to a colleague, “We make a good team.  Major York sees the good in people and I see the bad.”  He then extended his hand to me perhaps to make amends for the previous evening or to justify the verbal pounding he gave a coworker.  
 
Meditation
1 Corinthians 16:17,18--I am pleased to have Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus present, because these men have made up for your absence.  For they have refreshed my spirit and yours. Therefore recognize such people.
 
The behavior we model each day matters.  What we say and do broadcasts loud and clear our vision of God and what place He plays in our lives.  If we will set our eyes on Jesus, He will use us to pick up those who are confused or discouraged.  We will find kindness in ourselves we didn’t know existed.  We will defuse meanness with good and disarm malice with gentleness. If we will set our eyes on Jesus, we will radiate warmth in a season fraught with despair.  Jesus could become for us a lowly baby in a stinking trough because He kept His eyes on His Father.  If He could become a baby surely He can lead us to become adults.  If He could inspire by holiness can we not acquire by righteousness?  We serve an awesome God.  Let our vision reflect this.  Let our passion to know Him and make Him known be tested and proven genuine on the plain on which others live.  To do anything less will render us uncivilized.  Where there is no vision the . . .
 
Inspiration
Visions are great things, but it is useless to tell a man about a vision of God on earth unless you can get down into the mire he is in and lift him up; and the marvel is that if you have got hold of the vision of God and are working it out by moral obedience in your own life, you can do the lifting . . . If we look after the vision in our own life, we shall be a benediction to other people.—Oswald Chambers in The Shadow of an Agony
 
©1997 Daniel York  ARR. Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)