Vision: Part I

How important is vision? Well, according to scripture, where there is no vision the people perish. I tend to agree with this. After all I've met plenty of good-hearted and intelligent people who have no goals or a vision for their lives, and quite frankly they just flounder and are absolutely aimless. How do you explain all of these people on weekends (sometimes even on weekdays) who choose to spend hundreds of dollars getting drunk? For what big purpose do they engage in this behavior? Don't get me wrong, I've been there myself. What I remember about those days was that I had no other purpose than to get to the next day. It seems to me that without a clear and definite aim in life almost any behavior will do. I had an interesting experience a few summers ago that I think illustrates the importance of vision, that I'd like to share with you. I think you'll enjoy this one.

My son Payton was four years old at the time, and absolutely loved getting in the pool. LOVED IT! Still does. Back when he was four we were living in a house that had a pool in the backyard and we'd pretty much get in the pool every day. Fortunately I was working out of the house, and I could get away with doing this. Grace our second child was not yet one, and my wife Jinhee would watch Grace while I took Payton in the pool. We decided to get him one of these vests to help him float, and he'd do his best to do what he saw daddy do. After a while he got used to sticking his head under water and splashing around just moving his arms and legs like crazy. Unfortunately for the amount of effort he was exerting he wasn't going very far. In fact he wasn't going anywhere. My wife who used to teach swimming when she was in high school got in the water with him on ocassion and tried to teach him as well, but nothing seemed to be working. One day Jinhee said he needs to open his eyes under water. She remembered that when the kids could see under water, the VISION gave their action direction. Unfortunately Payton had developed the habit of closing his eyes every time he put his head under water, and we could not get him to open his eyes. So we came up with a solution - you guessed it - goggles!

The next time we went in the pool, the goggles went on and he started to swim all around that pool...well not exactly. I put the goggles on him, he stuck his head in the water, and absolutely no difference. Same massive action and zero movement. All kinds of thoughts went through my head. What's wrong with him? Why can't he swim? Maybe swimming is not his thing? I'm a bad coach. Should we invest in some swim lessons, after all I'm not really qualified to teach swimming. I just kept putting the goggles on him, and he'd complain that it was tight on his face, it was puling on his hair, it was uncomfortable, etc. Bottom line was that within a week, he didn't like the goggles and he'd rather not get in the pool then put them on. I was stumped! Which was quite a blow to my ego - the coach! This went on for about two weeks when it finally dawned on me that he might be closing his eyes under water while he was wearing the goggles!!! EUREKA!!!

To Be Continued...

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