Faith fills in vision gaps

By Rhonda Campbell

Creative ideas and the faith and vision to see the steps needed to implement those ideas are at the heart of tremendous success. Madam C. J. Walker, Mary McLeod Bethune, Henry Ford and Jeff Bezos are but a handful of business visionaries who lived out a dream. Each developed a product or service that experts said wouldn’t endure (or get off the ground), let alone succeed. It took insight, innovation, courage and powerful forward thinking.

What’s on your mind?

Wilferd Peterson said, “Big thinking precedes great achievement.” As truthful as that may be, great achievers know that success demands right action. Henry David Thoreau put it eloquently, sharing that, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.”

But, how do you implement faith and keep going when what you saw in your mind doesn’t appear to be coming together? What if you’ve been trying to materialize a vision for years, perhaps decades? How do you stay encouraged to keep taking right action then? You have faith.

Faith is key

The dictionary defines faith as the “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 1 says that, “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Almost sounds like faith is a material, an energy or something you can actually work with, create with.

“The substance of things hoped for” . . . substance. Think about that word for a minute — substance. So faith isn’t a wish. Faith isn’t something to be taken lightly. If faith was a food ingredient and you were making a cake, faith would be flour. It fuels vision. Could it actually bring things from the invisible into the visible?

To muscle up your faith, keep your vision in front of you. Think about what you want even if you’ve been taking action for years to achieve a dream. If faith doesn’t fail (it doesn’t) and you take the right action, something has to happen.

Exercise faith and take the next steps

Journal or record the times when faith and vision marry and make you a part of new achievements. Appreciate each step, however small you judge the step to be, that you take. After all, if each step that you take is leading you to the fulfillment of a larger dream, aren’t those seemingly small steps huge?

Open your eyes and see just how far you have come to date. See that you aren’t where you started. Realize that you probably won’t see the finish from the start, which is where faith comes in. Faith fills in the gaps when your vision grows dim. Faith knows that you are going to win. It’s time that you let it go to work for you.

At some point in your pursuit of success, you’re going to have to exercise faith. Why not start now?