Catch the Vision

Back in my old mission days there was a great missionary named Elder Lance Warr. This visionary in the four to six months that I knew him (I can’t remember all the details; hey cut me a break it was 20 years ago) brought up a thought that was deep and impacting on my success as a missionary and now that I think of it should have been my life’s motto; have you caught the vision?

You see, Warr was a visionary man (to borrow from the scriptures description of Lehi). He saw things in a larger picture and could bring out the best in people; have them seek for something that they didn’t know needed to be seen. He wrote some inspirational stuff that I still have today (just wish it had it with me right now but Ill paraphrase).  He said things like, If you cannot see yourself with an investigator, you haven’t caught the vision; If you cannot see yourself knocking on a hundred doors a week, you have not caught the vision. Things like this inspired us all to change how we were teaching the gospel. I as a young missionary went from 0 or 1 convert a month to several a month. The excitement that we shared was contagious and exhilarating.

I have been thinking of what he taught these last few days and I wonder how such a simple teaching tool could apply to what I am doing today. I have wanted to change careers and be home more primarily so I can be a dad and husband more but I haven’t used Warr’s principal and was going about it wrong. Its similar to those that want to lose weight. See it in your mind and you can make it happen in real life. You might not know what to do to start but if you want it hard enough you will see (or God will show you) what needs to be done and you will be able to accomplish it.

There is a poem by one of the apostles that says if you dream about, if all you do is scheme about it, if you fight for it, work day and night for it, you’ll get it. Now I can’t remember the whole poem (again that was in my notes from Warr). The point I am attempting to make here is, there is a intense need for vision. It is not enough to put pictures of the temple on your walls or read words from a holy book; even attending church means nothing if you don’t have a vision of what you want and where you want to be. I realize that it might not apply to children but to us adult it must mean everything! You want the job, body, kingdom? You need to do the daily work. It will not be handed to you. You have witnessed though life how music, movie and tv stars work their whole lives to be where they are? That same type of vision needs to be part of us too. If we want to be part of a growing kingdom of saints, if we want to be in the Kingdom of God with those that we love, we must be part of it and make that our vision.

I am certain that I could not convey the message as much as the Savior or as Elder Warr but I am attempting to do it with all the muster I can (perhaps I could do better with his notes). Glenn Beck once said once that he was not a historian but a story teller; I am not a prophet nor have any keys to say anything that could be thought of prophetic but I do want to at least say that I am waking up. I am seeing a vision and as cloudy and opaque as it is I am reaching for it because I hear the voice of the Lord in it sometimes and it says you are almost there some days. That vision drives me, it feeds a hunger that I have for truth and direction. What I am going to do with my life, I don’t know but I am working on being a listener and not just a hearer, a seer and not just an onlooker. I believe that we all have that potential to either hide that talent that the Master has given us or make it into two. 

It can be done.

Image is located here.