Write the Vision and Declare It on Tablets

The Sunday before last, I spoke about the importance of having a clear vision, of visualizing the things we see on the screen of our mind, the images we hold in our mind, and I encouraged you and invited you to make creative use of your ability to visualize things: to see your future, to see yourself, how you see yourself, how you see God. Sometimes it is simply a matter of examining those things: What do you see in your mind? How do you see God? Do you see Him as a gloomy, accusing, legalistic being, ready to attack you at any moment if you step out of line? Or do you see Him as a loving, tender, faithful, compassionate Father who walks with you every day? How do you see yourself? Do you see yourself as a person devoid of abilities, gifts, talents, and worth? Or do you see yourself as a person whom God has created with a specific purpose in life?

And can you visualize in your mind the person you want to be, the person you want to become, and see that person in three dimensions and in color? Can you do that? Because it depends on how you see yourself, and perhaps the situation you are living through right now, the person you are right now, is far from being the person you believe God has called you to be.

Stop looking so much at yourself as you are right now, and see yourself as God can one day enable you to become. Do you have the image there of the lion and the kitten that I always use at the retreats? This kitten, as you can see, does not have a small ego at all; he does not have poor self-esteem. He sees himself as a great lion, ready to roar. And last time I told the brothers and sisters that I could imagine that kitten jumping through the mirror and going inside it, becoming that great lion and roaring. And that is how your life should be: you have to ask yourself what you want to become.

And all of us can benefit from a good image of ourselves and our future. Visualize yourself: how you want to see yourself in the Kingdom of God; how you see yourself as a wife, as a mother, as a professional or a homemaker, as an individual, as a male or female friend; your body, your self-control, the values and virtues you want to display in your life. Take time to visualize those things and to stir up the energy you need to become that.

Many of us, as I said the Sunday before last, do not dream about what we want to be; we do not fantasize. I strongly believe in purposeful fantasy. I strongly believe in thinking creatively, visualizing creatively, taking the time to cultivate what we want to become and seeing it clearly, because what you see in your mind… You know that when you visualize something, your brain literally begins to react; the neurons in your brain—often the part of your brain connected with what you are visualizing—become active.

I recently read about an experiment conducted with basketball players from a university that is very well known for its basketball team. These basketball players were given certain instructions… The group of basketball players was divided into three groups, and one group was going to do its exercises normally, practicing everything related to basketball, just as they always did, very intensively. This was done for a certain number of days; I believe it was thirty days. That first group was simply to practice the skills physically.

Another group was not going to practice physically, but in a very focused and organized way, they would simply visualize in their minds; they would see themselves performing different kinds of drills, movements, and exercises related to basketball. Those people were not going to practice physically at all, but simply visualize themselves practicing: imagine themselves shooting a ball through the hoop, or running, defending the ball, dribbling, or whatever else—any kind of exercise specifically related to it. But they were not going to do any physical practice; that part is important.

And the third group simply was not going to do anything; they were not going to practice or do anything at all. They would merely serve as a control, a point of comparison for the others. It says that at the end of those thirty days, or however many it was, those who had practiced in a very focused and disciplined way had improved their performance through the training by about 24 percent. Those who did not practice at all remained the same; they neither progressed nor declined. But those who only visualized—who did not do any kind of exercise but did perform the practice movements in their minds—reportedly improved by 23 percent, almost as much as those who practiced. That tells us something, and I have read about several such cases.

There was another neurologist who spoke about how, for example, experiments have been done with people who visualize themselves playing a piano and performing the piano motions and movements with their fingers. That part of their brain—because they measure it electronically using the methods and instruments they have—that part of their brain which would respond to or direct those movements is doing the equivalent as well. That part of the brain is firing; the activity is visible, as though the people were actually practicing.

Now, do not think, “Well, what I am going to do is visualize myself, and then I will get there…” No, it has its complexities, but what is interesting is that there is a cerebral equivalent to what we visualize and imagine. And that is why it is so important for us to understand that equivalence between what you devote time to imagining and creating and what moves you.

That is why symbols are so powerful in the Gospel—so many different symbols. You raise your hands, and what are you doing? When you raise your hands, I hope you are visualizing that you are before an august, majestic presence and that you are either worshiping, asking for something, or drawing near to heaven. You are activating many things when you raise your hands.

When you kneel, you are showing humility, but you are also concentrating and going inward… When one is kneeling, one becomes recollected, as though looking inward. One closes one’s eyes, and it is as though one were saying, “I am going to immerse myself within.”

Thus, these symbols of the Gospel and the Christian faith are tremendously powerful because they remind us of things and activate them. The flag of a nation or a company’s logo activates energies that are needed to carry out a task.

So I have spoken to you about the importance of visualizing, of activating things and energies in your life through active visualization. But it must be positive visualization, not negative, but optimistic in the Lord.

I also encourage you, when you read the Word, to visualize what you are reading. See Jesus healing the paralytic; see Him walking on the water. Visualize these things; interact with the Word of God, because this will give it a deeper dimension, and you will gain more benefit from the things you read and meditate upon. Do not stop at merely reading them superficially; put your mind and spirit inside them.

So, when I speak of vision or visualizing, I am referring in part to the idea of using one’s imagination, using the screen of our mind to see in three dimensions what one wants to be or become one day in life. If you find… I encourage you to find an image. Nowadays, the internet offers such a wealth of them; today it is so easy to go to Images and, for example, think of something you would like to use as a motto for your life, as an image toward which you would like to move in your life. It could be the figure of a wise woman at peace with herself, who reflects joy or intelligence or wisdom; perhaps a warrior-like attitude; or a healthy, strong person—whatever it may be. Look for something that you… Art has so many wonderful things that can help us.

There are so many beautiful images that you can find and use as, “This will be the motto of my life,” and every time I look at it, I will think, “That is who I am going to be; that is who I am going to be; that is what I am going to accomplish in my life.” I encourage you to do that sometime as an exercise, and I believe it will be tremendously transformative.

Another way we can see things is by having a very detailed vision of the values we want to govern our lives—the values and virtues we want to govern our lives. Our church has a vision and a mission that we have developed and declared, in case some of you do not know them, because it is important for you to revisit the vision again and again.

Today I want to read something from the book that I have told you I have been writing about life by design. Again, it is about designing our lives instead of allowing circumstances to define them, and I want to read something about that. In fact, I have referred to these things in the past, but today I want to do so with respect to this idea of visualizing and seeing the images that are to govern our lives.

In the Book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament, there is a passage that many of us have read, and I want to encourage you to view it in connection with this. In chapter 2, verses 1 through 3, the writer says:

“…I will stand upon my watch—in other words, I will be alert, I will be watchful—and set my foot upon the fortress, and I will watch to see what will be said to me…”

In other words, brothers and sisters, how often do you take time to hear from God and ask Him, “Lord, what do You want from my life? What plans do You have? What callings do You have? What assignments do You have for my life? What do You want me to accomplish? How do You want me to be? What kind of life do You want me to live? What kind of servant, what kind of man or woman, do You want me to be? Speak to me, instruct me, express it to me.”

I can tell you that my life has been changed on many occasions when I have taken the time to stop and say to Him, “Lord, I am at a crossroads; I do not know which path to choose. Speak to me.” And then you begin to wait, remain alert, and pray continually. You even take some time to fast and seek, as it says, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills; from where will my help come?”

You can imagine that person looking up toward the mountains. He is in a predicament, facing a difficulty: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills; from where will my help come?” And sometimes that is where we are in our lives, at that point. “Lord, I need… I have graduated from college, and now I have to look for a job. I do not know whether I will move to another city, stay in the same city, or look through an agency of this kind.” Crossroads—and we have to seek direction.

Then the writer says, “…and I will watch to see what will be said to me and what I shall answer concerning my complaint. And Jehovah answered me.”

When you ask the Lord, God answers you. David says, “If anyone lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives abundantly and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Do you have a problem, a difficulty, a dilemma, something you have to resolve, a pivotal moment in your life when you are standing still before the abyss or standing before the sea on the shore, needing a boat to come and carry you to the other side? Ask the Lord for wisdom. Ask Him for an answer, speak to Him, and contend for the answer.

“…and Jehovah answered me and said, ‘Write the vision’—that is, the vision God was going to give this man—‘and declare it upon tablets’—in those days people wrote on tablets; today you could say, ‘Write it on your computer’; it is easier nowadays—‘so that the one who reads it may run. Though the vision will tarry for yet a while, it hastens toward the end and will not lie. Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come. It will not delay.’”

One of the most instructive passages I know concerning the foundations of success, personal transformation, and a fruitful life is precisely this passage. Now, in its original context, if you read the Book of Habakkuk, the prophet’s words in chapter 2 that I have just read refer to a revelation God had given Habakkuk concerning specific historical events related to the people of Israel. Even so, the divine counsel Habakkuk receives about how he was to handle that prophetic word God would give him is highly applicable to the way every believer should relate to any powerful impression or any vision God places in one’s heart, any creative image of the future, any suspicion you may have that God wants to do something in your lives, any longing you have. I see here the same approach as a formula for how to do this.

In the course of our lives, brothers and sisters, we receive challenges and specific callings from God. Those callings will often register within us as impressions and longings, creative impulses that we will conceive in our spirit; and from those impulses will be born projects, initiatives, efforts, and decisions that will lead us to invest our energies in concrete endeavors and directions.

Those visions that we conceive may have to do with a profession, a marriage, our children, ministry, finances, or simply a specific mission that God may want to entrust to us. And like Habakkuk, we will have to decide what we will do with that initial, embryonic purpose that God has implanted in our spirit. We will have the option of rejecting it, ignoring it, or treating it as though it were merely a vain dream, something that occurred to us but is of no great significance. We may consign it to the status of a passing notion or an unattainable goal, or alternatively, we may receive it with reverence and intentionality, sanctifying it in our spirit and proceeding to cultivate it throughout our lives until it becomes a beautiful reality.

Verse 2 of that chapter says, “The Lord answered me and said—the first thing He tells him is—write the vision.”

You know, many times when God speaks something to me, when I have a dream, one of the things I try to do is write it down, because three or four days later, details of it have been lost. And it is important, if God speaks to you, if there is something you feel God told you, to write it down somewhere so that you do not forget it. Put it on your refrigerator door, slip it into your wallet, whatever it takes, but set it down in some permanent form so that it does not get away from you or slip away amid all the other things that happen in life. Write the vision.

Here the prophet Habakkuk speaks to us about the importance of taking seriously what we receive from God and committing it to a permanent form. He points out the importance of discerning God’s calling for our lives and recording that calling, that vision, that spiritual impression, in a specific and deliberate form, and then allowing that vision to guide our course day by day.

In life, every great achievement begins with a specific vision conceived in the mind and spirit. And that vision must then be successfully recorded, externalized in some way. A successful and purposeful life must be founded upon an ambitious and comprehensive vision.

God invites us to conceive great dreams and aspire to great things for our lives. That general vision will sometimes have to do with very broad questions, such as: What kind of person do I want to be? How do I want others to remember me when I die? Stephen Covey, who wrote one of the most transformative, popular, and widely read books in the history of humanity, wrote the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” a very powerful book that I encourage you to read; you can find it in Spanish on Amazon. And he says that we should live our lives and ask ourselves: If I were to die and could attend my own funeral and hear what people were saying about me at that funeral, what would I want them to say about how I lived my life?

And so he says, that is how you should live your life: so that they will say, “That woman was an exemplary mother, a woman who never settled for mediocrity. I always saw her pursuing excellence and improving every day. She began life humbly and went on to do this and that, and she impacted many lives, left behind spiritual daughters, and became like that exemplary woman of Proverbs 31.”

How many sisters would like people to speak about them that way? Amen. Well then, live your life that way. Sometimes you have an interesting vision: the Proverbs 31 vision of the suitable woman, the exemplary woman, an enterprising woman who takes initiative, plans for the future, provides for her family, and even reaches the point where people know her husband as so-and-so’s husband. Not her as so-and-so’s wife, but they say, “He is the husband of that extraordinary woman who lives in such-and-such a place.” So live your life; let that vision carry you forward.

How do I want others to remember me when I die? What kind of father, wife, or Christian do I want to be? In what specific ways do I want to affect the world before I leave this earth? I believe that every one of us should say, “When I die, I want the world to be at least a little better than I found it; because I lived on this earth, something good was deposited in it.” There is at least one sister who feels touched by what I am saying. That is a beautiful dream: to leave the world a little better than I found it when I arrived.

Sometimes a person must have a broad vision, and that vision, in turn, must be composed of smaller, specific components corresponding to the daily goals and concrete projects we pursue throughout our lives.

For example, you say, “I want to become an admirable woman and be regarded as a spiritual mother by many women who have known me.” Well, that is a vision. You want to be a spiritual mother. Well, what does that mean? Then you must spell it out: “Well, that means I will have to read about spiritual matters, and I will devote myself to enriching my understanding. I will read the Word, I will read good counseling books, I will master myself and overcome my shortcomings and difficulties. I will specifically seek out young women to whom I can be a Deborah, a Ruth, or an Esther, and whom I can minister to and disciple.”

Then you have to begin. If you see a young woman who needs guidance, seek her out. Invite her to meet with you, to have a cup of coffee, and ask her about her dreams; ask her about what she wants to do with her life. So many young women—am I right?—would love to have a mentor in their lives. Of course they would. There are so many young women today who need and desire this; if they could find a mature, experienced woman to disciple them, I believe there are plenty of them. But you must have eyes to see, and first you must see yourself as a woman who can do that, who wants to do it, and who has a calling to do it; then prepare yourself and live your life that way.

That is, you go from “I want to be a spiritual mother” to asking yourself, “Okay, what do I need to do to become that, and what values must define my life in that way?” So a person must take the great vision and break it into specific little pieces.

Brothers and sisters, we cannot live life at random. That is why I speak of life by design, because you must design your life. Never allow your circumstances, your past, your insecurities, your body, or your wounds to define what you are or what you do. Look, if there is an opportunity for you to stand before a group and say something God has placed in your heart, even if your knees are shaking while you speak, go and do it. You will have won a great moral victory, and the next time it will be a little easier to do it. But if you allow yourself to be ruled by fear, you will never do anything; you must assert yourself.

You cannot live your life at random. We cannot live our lives merely existing, improvising from day to day, reacting to circumstances, and living according to a routine imposed upon us from the outside. We must live according to specific purposes cultivated through reflection and prayer and illuminated by the Holy Spirit. We must forge specific goals that guide our lives and determine our actions each day.

We must conceive God’s visions in our spirit and then launch out to bring them to pass with faith and determination, one piece at a time. When a sculptor, for example, initially conceives a sculpture, the first phase of that artistic project will generally be a vague, undefined image that bursts into his mind and lodges there like a meteor.

For example, the Pietà, Michelangelo’s great work. The fact is that this image of that woman, that Mary with the body of her dead son across her lap, is not an image that actually occurred in history, because Mary never held Jesus’ lifeless body that way in her arms—or who knows? But the first thing the artist conceived one day in his mind was the idea of this mother with her son’s dead body across her lap: the Pietà. I imagine that one day something simply came into the sculptor’s mind—a general image of a woman holding the lifeless body of her son on her knees—and then he had to ask, “Okay, what will the woman’s face look like? What will the cloth covering part of her lifeless son’s body look like? Will I drape it over his shoulders, or will I lay it across her knees? Will I have her sitting on a bench or on a chair?” So many questions. First came an impression, and afterward he had to take that image piece by piece.

The first phase is just that: a general, vague image. An embryonic idea arises in the artist’s mind, an initial impression that does possess a certain specificity, yet is far from being the beautiful object with defined contours and distinctive qualities that the finished work will ultimately become. Little by little, through continual reflection and focused visualization, that initial image begins to take shape, to acquire three dimensions. Then the artist proceeds.

Look at the drapery; it is one of the most powerful things about that work. The cloth looks as though you could touch it and it would respond to your hand, it would move, even though it is made of marble. You can see—look at the Lord’s neck tilted back, utterly lifeless, His limp arms hanging at His sides. All of that—every detail—he had to conceive every part of it: the left leg in its position, the muscles. The great artists studied anatomy, and if they placed an arm like this, they had to know which muscles would stand out with the arm in that position. All of this is there, but there was an initial image, and he proceeded to make sketches. This artist’s sketches still exist, and one can see the creative process, how it went from one thing to another and then another, until it became what he finally made.

Then he begins: the muscles are outlined, making sure they accurately reflect the rules of anatomy. The proportions of the various parts of the body and the distinctive features of the face are established. And you can see the mother’s face—when you examine it, the tilt of her neck, her gaze fixed upon her son, the expression almost of astonishment, of sorrow, the mystery represented by her son’s body—so many things are expressed there. And he had to think about every one of those things that he was going to execute in marble. And so, as we imagine things, we develop the vision; that vague territory of the beginning is divided into its parts, and things begin to take shape, to acquire names, and to define their relationships with one another. And what was initially a vague idea begins to be defined.

And that is what has happened in our lives with things you have achieved in yours. One day you had an impression of something and wanted to accomplish something: “I want to study, I want to drive, I want to buy a house, I at least want to learn a trade.” And you launched out, applied yourself, and achieved it. But you had to begin applying somewhere, knocking on doors, reading, studying. The hardest part is moving from mere imagination to concrete action, beginning point by point and initiative by initiative until something becomes a reality.

And when you begin the process, when you dare to take the first two or three steps, the process begins to pull you along, and things you never imagined open up, and then help comes to you. What you needed was to launch out, to take the first step of faith, and then you set loose a series of elements that begin to speak into your life, pull you along, help you, and push you from behind so that you keep moving forward. That is wonderful. How beautiful it is when you dare to begin; then things start becoming easier. The hardest thing is breaking the inertia.

A train standing there—how difficult the first movement is, the first pull. Then it begins moving little by little and gains energy and momentum until it is traveling at an unstoppable speed.

So wise is the creator, the person who is not content to proceed from a half-formed vision held only in the mind, but instead defines it and puts it down on paper, even while allowing himself to revise it many times along the way. Because many times you begin with one thing and end up heading in another direction, but that is all right, because that is the creative process. You discover things as you go along, and you adjust the vision.

The Bible tells us that we have to write the vision. Write the vision. We must record it, write it down, mark it, establish it firmly in our minds. And Habakkuk adds once again:

“…write the vision and make it plain on tablets…”

We must declare our visions. Many times we will have to declare them with our mouths. We must declare them before an audience, before a spouse or our relatives. You must speak with your mouth the things God has placed in your heart, the goals and projects you have committed yourself to achieving.

By declaring our visions, we bind ourselves to them. We take them out of the realm of the merely subjective and conceptual, and we commit ourselves; we make a commitment. We give our dreams greater seriousness when we set them walking on public ground, when we announce them before the surrounding community. And I tell you, if you do that, do it before people who are not going to kill your dream, because there are people who do not know how to dream, cannot dream, are pessimists, are defeatists, and when you tell them that you have a vision, they are going to say, “No, girl, that’s impossible. How could you even think of that? Those are vain dreams. No one in your family has done that; no one in our community has dared to. No, look for something smaller.”

If it is a vision from God and it is within His frame of reference, announce it to people who dream too, people who encourage you, people who can tell you, “Yes, you can do it.” Never cast your pearls before swine, because they are going to kill your vision, and that is not good. But you have to announce it; you have to declare it in some way; you have to choose your moments, because we give our dreams greater seriousness, and this daring act drives us toward action and adds a sense of urgency and seriousness to our undertaking.

Habakkuk says, “…declare it on tablets, so that the one who reads it may run…”

In other words, so that the person who reads the vision may be guided—and that will primarily be you—so that those people may know what you believe, or so that you may know what you believe and then guide your vision. Because a moment comes when, once you have written your vision, declared it, and conceived it concretely in your spirit, you then have to walk in it—run in that vision, in other words. You have to launch out to accomplish it piece by piece; you have to live within that vision and bring it to fruition part by part over time. You need to let it take on a life of its own, to let the vision take you by the hand and impart direction and coherence to your actions in life.

You have a race ahead of you, and you have begun to develop a design, an outline that is to guide you step by step until the vision blossoms fully and reaches its complete fulfillment. In the business world, people speak of alignment, and it refers to when a company orders all its operations and investments in light of its overall vision and mission, and everything done in that company on the day-to-day level, in its operations, must reflect that company’s broader purposes.

Anything that does not advance and complete that foundational vision must be discarded and replaced with initiatives consistent with the governing vision. For example, how many have heard of Pizza Hut? How many have eaten Pizza Hut? Admit it; I know that many of you have eaten Pizza Hut pizza. It is one of the largest companies in the United States. They have a mission that says—their vision is to take pride in making the perfect pizza. Many of us would say, “Well, I think…” but they seek to make the perfect pizza and provide courteous and helpful service on every occasion, and to strive so that every customer says they will come back. That is the goal, and that is the vision, and that inspires them; so everything they do, within the limitations of mass production, is directed toward that vision.

You know, our church has a vision and a mission, and it also has values that govern our life. When you enter the original sanctuary—one day we are going to have to write it here—you will see that we have a vision and a mission too, and that is why I want to take a moment so that, if you do not know it…

What I did was, years ago, I spoke with the deacons and with different people, and many times whenever we leaders meet, we read the vision to remind ourselves of it, and I always have to remember that vision and that mission and those values. Everything is involved in this because they are different aspects of the same thing.

Mission: to promote the formation of disciples. Every word has a great deal of meaning for me, and it should have meaning for us here. The formation of disciples, because we are not simply religious visitors to the church. No—disciples. What is a disciple? There is a great deal to unpack.

To promote the formation of disciples radically committed to the Kingdom of God and filled with the Holy Spirit. Why do you think I take the time for the journeys and all these kinds of things, and encourage you to seek the Holy Spirit? Because that is one of the pieces.

And our vision, the other part, says that those disciples must be equipped to evangelize, disciple, and serve others through a church of excellence, founded on the principles of the Word of God.

Again, you have to take each expression of what I have just read, and we try in every possible way… If you wonder why León de Judá does this, why it makes such an effort, that is the vision, and we try to align what we do with it.

And the other part of our goal, our vision, says: We want to be an exemplary church, for the glory of God, one that is an example to others, that models the best values of the Word of God, and that is founded on the gifts and the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

That balance is very important to me: gifts and fruit. Because many churches go over to the side of gifts alone and forget the fruit—the character of Jesus, the values, the virtues of Christian character. The gifts and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, demonstrating excellence in evangelism, community involvement, administration, and the equipping of its members to be effective servants of Jesus Christ.

I could preach ten sermons to you about those few words I have just read, and everything we do here at León de Judá must be—or, at its best, is—directed toward those values. Then we have foundational values that must… becoming more specific, we have to be concrete: passion for the Kingdom of God, evangelism, leadership development, a supernatural mindset among the people, the primacy of the Scriptures, passion for excellence, community involvement, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and having transformational ministries that change the surroundings, the society, the culture in which we live.

Instead of our conforming to the world, let the world conform to our values of faith and the Spirit.

I think you should give the Lord a round of applause, if only as encouragement, because that is the vision. That is on our website, by the way. If you go to the website and look for what we believe or who we are, click on that section and you will enter into many of the things we believe, and there are many declarations about our life.

I am going to leave it there. There is so much to unpack. This is long. Because he also speaks about… “though the vision is delayed, still, for a time, it hastens toward the end…”

Some time ago I spoke about patience; I think I preached a sermon on patience and determination. It is on the website. And it was part of this process, because when you want to change in your life, when you want to overcome attitudes, wounds, deformities, addictions, complexes, and bad memories from your past, it is going to take time. Reprogramming the brain and reprogramming the spirit takes time, and you have to keep the vision there. Though the vision may tarry, though reaching your goal may take time, keep fighting for it. Do not give up. You suffered a setback? Well, brush off your knees, get back on the horse, and keep moving forward. Try 10, 15, 25, 30 times, but do not give up. Keep your dream alive; cherish it. If you went down a dead-end street, back up and take another street until you reach your goal.

So listen for the vision, ask God for wisdom, write the vision, declare the vision, walk according to the vision every day of your life, determine your decisions and your habits each day according to that vision, and be patient until you bring it fully to fruition.

These are some of the most important values of a successful life, a fruitful life. And I hope that this morning, in your heart, you ask Him, “Lord, what do You want me to do? Who do You want me to be? What transformations do You want to take place in my life?” And then open your ears, open your eyes, and wait for the answer, which will not be long in coming. It will come, I assure you. The Lord gives to the one who asks; the one who asks receives. Amen.

Bow your head for a moment and go into the screen; turn on the inner television right now and ask the Lord to speak to you and resurrect your dreams. If some dream of yours died—perhaps someone here had a dream die; you had a dream, and because you failed and got hurt while pursuing it, you said, “No, I am not going to continue with this dream”—resurrect it; give it to the Lord again. Dust it off, clean it, and submit it to the Lord again, and say, “Lord, once again I am going to…” And do not let anything in this world, my brother, shout at you that you cannot. Because the Word says it clearly: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But believe that. That is a good vision: I can do all things. But now, what things can I do? And give a name to those things you believe you cannot do. Name them and launch out with a firm step. It may be a turtle’s step, but it does not matter. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare: the tortoise kept going, and the hare grew complacent, and the tortoise arrived. Sometimes it takes time.

I tell you, look, it does not matter if it takes time, but keep going with the steady stride of a marathon runner until you reach the goal. Father, I ask that my brothers and my sisters be made fruitful this morning, that they be impregnated by this Word, which is living and effective, this Word that comes from Your innermost being, from Your truth.

Your Word says that it is living and effective, and that it enters into us and changes and breaks things and shapes things according to its content. Father, right now I ask that the life of the Spirit be unleashed within my brothers and my sisters—the capacity to conceive, to dream great things, to undertake fruitful and productive lives. Father, may we not remain stuck in the mire, because You do not create quagmires, Father; You break through quagmires, You break down barriers so that the river may flow and find its way to the sea. And we believe that today You make our lives fruitful, Father.

Oh, I pray for my young brothers, my sisters who have already reached a certain age, marriages that need to be renewed, people who now have a sea before them and need to launch out and believe that their boat will not sink because You are in it. May You fill us this morning, Father, with a very great sense of urgency, a fire in our innermost being to dream again and to undertake new visions; and may this church be characterized by diligent and courageous people, people who know that You have given them every place the soles of their feet tread upon, and that they can never be defeated. We thank You, Father, in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. God bless you, my brothers and sisters.