20 Essential Building Blocks Of Vision - Part 1 Series

However, vision is more than simply what could be. After all, what could be is simply an idea or a dream. Vision also carries with it a sense of conviction. It’s not only what could be done, but what should be done. It’s something that must happen. It moves you from passive concern to action. Conviction is what gives vision a sense of urgency.

Vision always stands in contrast to the world as it is. Vision demands change. But a vision also always requires someone to champion the cause. It takes someone who is willing to put his or her neck on the line. Someone who has the courage to act on an idea.

This brings us to the story of Nehemiah and the 20 building blocks that we will be looking at today and over the next three weeks.

Around 587BC the Babylonians invaded Judah and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, along with Solomon’s temple. This was the third of three campaigns into that region. About 70 years after the first Babylonian invasion, Cyrus, King of Persia, gave the Jews permission to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Under the leadership of a man named Zerubbabel, these exiled Jews returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple. Things were looking up for while. It seemed as if Israel was on the verge of becoming a blessed nation once again. But the people refused to turn away from the very sins that God had judged their ancestors for. The temple was not being maintained. Sacrifices had ceased. The Jews continued to adopt the religious practices and culture of the surrounding nations. By the time our story begins, the political, social, and spiritual conditions in Jerusalem were deplorable.

Meanwhile, back in Persia, a Jewish man named Nehemiah heard about the condition of his homeland.

Let’s look at Nehemiah 1 verses 1-4.

Nehemiah was so moved by what he heard that he wept. It’s not that he was weak, or emotionally unstable, but instead that he was burdened. In fact he was so burdened that it says in verse 4 he mourned and fasted and prayed for days. Little did he know that these deep feelings were the initial birth pains of a vision that people would be reading about thousands of years later. Notice that Nehemiah’s vision didn’t start out as a vision. It began as a concern or a burden for his nation and it’s people.

Building Block #1 – A vision begins as a concern

A God ordained vision will begin as a concern. You will hear or see something that gets your attention. Something will bother you about the way things are or the way things are headed.

Unlike many passing concerns, this will stick with you.

You will find yourself thinking about them in your free time.

You may lose sleep over them.

You won’t be able to let them go because they won’t let you go.

Nehemiah’s concern over the condition of Jerusalem consumed him. It broke his heart. Thoughts of what was, as opposed to what could be brought tears to his eyes. This was not just a casual concern…it was a vision in the making.

So what did he do?

He didn’t steal away across the desert in the night. He didn’t fabricate a reason to leave Persia. He didn’t even share his burden with other concerned Jews.