Building Our Wall Part 4: Finding Our Vision

Part 1: The Wall of Jerusalem
Part 2: Defending the Wall

Part 3: The Importance of Unity

"You're having a vision. It's like a dream...with a point. Which is exactly what you've missed." --Veggie Tales, "An Easter Carol"

Sorry, I just couldn't resist. Because even though that is technically talking about a different sort of vision, it still fits perfectly. The sort of vision I'm talking about is a vision for what we want America to look like. The day after I heard the second person talk about Nehemiah and building our wall, I went to Congressman Loudermilk's town hall meeting where he talked largely about having a vision for America. It is something so many people do not have. We see all that is wrong with America. We want to fix those problems. But the problem is, we do not know where we are going.

Our vision for America is our dream of what it should be. Not just a far off, never will happen daydream. It is a dream with a point, a dream we will work to make happen. And that is the point we have missed. We don't just get in the car and drive, not usually, anyway. We decide where we want to go, and then come up with a route to get there. There may be many routes to that vision, some detours, some setbacks, but if we have a vision and we keep to that vision, we will be able to overcome those detours. If we just set out to fix America without knowing what we want it to look like, we will do no better than someone trying to build a house without a floorplan.

Via Pinterest

We have to have a strategy. It's like a road map. Say I want to get to Walt Disney World. I have my destination, my vision. I know what Disney World looks like. But I'm still not going to get in the car and drive. (I would just get in the car and ride if my dad was driving, since he's driven it multiple times, but that's beside the point.) I have to plan my route first. There may even be multiple routes, say if one route has an accident on it and all the traffic is stopped. I can still get to Disney World, but it might be a more roundabout way.

It is the same with America. Part of my vision for America is a country where there are no abortions. Would I like to outlaw all abortions entirely in one fell swoop? Absolutely. I pray for it to end entirely all the time. But outlawing it all at once is not the only route, and not even necessarily the route that is most likely to work. It might take small steps, a law that outlaws abortion after 20 weeks, then one that outlaws it after 15, then one that outlaws it after 10, and on and on until it is entirely illegal. And a large part of stopping abortion isn't even by law, but by changing the minds of the people. If everyone woke up to the atrocity it is, perhaps we won't even need special laws about abortion because murder laws would cover it.

This is where unity comes in. We attack the same issues from different angles, trying to move the end result toward that common vision we have for America. The elected officials are the primary workers on the part of the wall that involves changing the laws of this nation. But it is the people in the church and the schools and the media who are building the part of the wall that is changing the culture in this country. We work together in our different parts of the wall to use a united strategy to get to our common vision. Because united, working together to build our wall, we can get America to be that far off vision, that place where the government stays within the limitations of the Constitution, where people are allowed to live by their convictions, where the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not infringed. It won't be perfect, sin will still taint this world until the end, but we can make it better and we can do it together.  Doing it together, we can do something we cannot do apart.

Via Pinterest

I never really expected Finding Nemo to have a good analogy for this, but it does. Remember the part where Dori is stuck in the net with all the other fish? They are all swimming in random directions and the net continues to go up. They are flailing about with no direction, with no unity. Honestly, it is easy in that situation to have a common vision: to be free. But they were flailing, they had no strategy. However, Nemo knew what to do. He and Dori and Marlin told all the fish to swim down together. Their strategy was to swim down. But they had to do it together. At first, the net continued to rise. As they all worked together, in unity, they began slowly to take ground (or water) until the arm on the fishing boat holding the pulley snapped and released the net, allowing the fish to achieve their vision and swim free.

Together we must have a vision. Together we must have a strategy for attaining that vision. Together we must build that wall. Together we will accomplish what we set out to accomplish.

To be continued: Affecting Change