Have you ever had that sense of waking up in a kind of spiritual fog...like you've lost sight of the vision Jesus once made so real to you? You know Jesus is risen and has made His home in you and yet you haven't the foggiest idea about what to do next. Days lie end-to-end and it seems like you've missed a direction somewhere and now you feel rather lost in the forest. You're in great company...with the like of Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, James and John.

The truth is, we can live out of such deeply ingrained habits that we don't give a second thought to how we walk through a day. It's like being on automatic pilot. I'm not talking about sin here, but just the way we've always done things...you know, trusting in ourselves, what "we" know.

When we can't seem to see the One who has set out the race for us to run, we can slide back into, "Well, I know how to do this, so that's what I'll do." We go to out "default" setting. For Peter it was fishing. For Saul it was preserving what he saw and inviolable tradition. 

There had to have been gaps in time after the resurrection when Jesus appeared to His followers.

Peter wasn't the most patient sort of guy and during one of those "gaps" he made a decision. He apparently didn't know what to do next, so he decided to go back to what he knew: fishing. "I'm going back to fishing." Peter said to some of the disciples. This wasn't a, "Hey, let's have a guy's weekend and go catch some fish." This was, "I'm reclaiming the boats and going back to what I know." It wasn't a sinful act. He just didn't get that everything had changed. The truth of it all had not penetrated very deep.

For Saul of Tarsus, this new movement of believing Messiah had come, had been crucified and that He had risen from the dead was beyond his comprehension. Make no mistake, Saul believed in resurrection, but a general one at the end of time. For there to be a singular resurrection to new life while the rest of the world was still locked in the cycle of decay and death was inconceivable to him! He was going to do all he could to stamp this "heresy" out. He didn't realize that everything had changed and would never be the same...ever!

When we feel like a person without a vision  we need to remember that Jesus hasn't forgotten His call on our lives. He hasn't forgotten the destiny He created us for. That's when we need the grace of a "come to Jesus" moment to stop us in mid-rut and change our focus. 

We can even be active in ministry, so busy with God's work that we take our eyes off the One upon whom our faith depends from start to finish. We can be in religious high-gear, working so diligently and forget that what Jesus told us at point "A" was to lead us to point "B". Point"A" can become an idol and we get focused on it and miss voice of the One who called us. It's not like we completely forget. After all, we are working for the Kingdom of God, right?

The church can putter along, and has done so in history, carrying on with churchy stuff never realizing it's in a religious fog. I have been in that place where I felt clueless. I could preach, teach, counsel, do liturgy and all that was expected of me and be a man without a vision. God in His great mercy has then had to lovingly pull the rug out from under my feet. When that happens, I know I've been standing on the wrong rug. 

That unfolding of His vision for my life was a point from which I was to move forward as I followed Him...not a place to pour a slab and build an immovable structure. When God got my eyes off what I was doing and on the One who had called me, my perspective changed...and ever changes. He never changes, praise His name, but I am being changed by His Spirit daily: renewed in mind and heart, convicted and convinced, freed and forgiven.

Jesus' vision for us will always be bigger than we are, will cost more than we have, and will take strength, wisdom and power that are beyond human capacity. THAT is actually Good News, since it frees us from ever relying on US to do what Jesus is calling us to do. Remember, He said, "Apart from me, you can do nothing." Folks, He meant what He said.

The paradigm shift is one from achieving to believing, from death to Life, from self to Savior, from control to yielding all we are to the One we confess as Lord...from cluelessness to renewed & unfolding vision!

Read through and pray through the Scriptures for this Sunday [Acts 9:1-20; Revelation 5:1-14; Psalm 30 and John 21:1-19] . Let the Lord speak to your heart, clarify your vision and encourage you that, He, having begun a good work in you, will bring it to completion by the day Jesus returns or calls you home.