Vision that Troubles
Leadership in Context with Keith Tucci
Episode 148
Genesis 15:1-3
After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great.” Abram said, “O Lord God, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
The reason Abram, not yet Abraham, was seeking the Lord was that he had no one to receive his vast inheritance. Abram was a very wealthy man at this point. When the vision of the Lord came to him to show him something, the angel of the Lord first said, “Do not fear.”
An instigated vision from the Holy Spirit creates more of the unknown. It will cause you to have to resist fear. When we think of vision, we think of things being clarified.
Vision can be separated into two categories:
Inspired vision that comes from the inside—Seeking God, studying, reading, learning and vision that is birthed in our heart.
Instigated vision—God doesn’t just direct you, but redirects you. In that moment, there are more unknown things than known things.
In Daniel 8, Daniel said that vision exhausted him and made him sick. It turned his life upside down because God was redirecting him and inspiring something in him.
Inspired vision, something that comes from the inside of you, brings clarity and focus. Instigated vision is something that you sometimes have to hang onto because you won’t know how it will work until you get around the corner.
This is the case with Abram. God promised him that he will have a son and that he would not have to leave his inheritance to someone else. This vision is what sustained Abraham years later when he had to put Isaac on the altar. God planted a vision in him, years before, redirecting him and supernaturally invading his life so that when Abraham got to that point he was able to move on it.
Inspired vision is about the preferred future. This vision compels us to obedience, increases our ability to call people to follow us, brings clarity and understanding. The instigated vision, on the other hand, when God supernaturally interrupts us, doesn’t necessarily have those factors. It stirs us up and troubles us so that it can move us to a place we would never have been, making a decision we would never have had the grace to make because God is instigating us and moving us from where we are.
Numbers 12:6-8a
He said, “Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. “Not so, with My servant Moses, he is faithful in all My household; with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings…
He spoke to Moses face to face and not “in dark sayings.” God wants to give us vision so He can speak to us not just in “dark sayings.”
Numbers 24:4
The oracle of him who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty…
The vision is designed to hear the words of the Lord. Hearing and vision always go together. It’s show and tell when the Lord is working.
Numbers 24:16
The oracle of him who hears the words of God, and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty…
When God instigates a vision, it is not just about direction; it’s about God revealing Who He is. When God gave Abram that vision, it wasn’t just so Abram could have someone to give his inheritance to. It was God revealing Himself--that God was looking for a father in the earth, the head of a tribe, someone He could make covenant with.
One of the ways vision can be tested and embraced is that God wants to reveal not just a “what”--He wants to reveal a Who, and the Who is Him. There shouldn’t just be detail with the vision, but also a seeking to understand who God is. As we seek, we should understand not just what God wants to do, but Who God is.
There is vision that troubles. Has God put something out there for you that seems unattainable or unpractical? This is the time where you seek the Who, not just the what.
There is a time where God troubles your waters, and that is not bad. It usually will take some years to see the fulfillment. It is part of who God is. He just doesn’t direct us; He sometimes redirects us.
Join us next week as Keith Tucci continues to put leadership truth in the context of the local church. And as always, please like, share, rate/review, and invite others to listen. See you next week!
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