The Vision and the Vow
As an inauguration to my new blog, I figured I'd post something inspiring. A good word to start off 2015. Without further adieu...
The Vision, by Pete Greig. (it's a bit long, but worth it!)
So this guy comes up to me and says,
"What's the vision? What's the big idea?"
I open my mouth, and the words come out
like this...
The vision?
The vision is Jesus:
obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones?
I see an army.
And they are free from materialism -
they laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could
eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday
they wouldn't even notice. They know the
meaning of the Matrix,
the way the West was won.
They are mobile like the wind,
they belong to the nations,
they need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil
and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free
yet they are slaves
of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision? The vision is holiness
that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity
long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers
from every secret motive,
every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps,
their Satan games.
This is an army
that would lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day
its soldiers choose to lose that they might
one day win the great
"Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical
on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don't need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards
and hear the crowds chanting again and again:
"COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground,
the whisper of history
in the making, foundations shaking,
revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers,
conspiracy is breathing... This is the
sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed -
young people who beat their bodies into
submission. Every soldier would take a
bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts
"for me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuiels the fire
of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners.
Martyrs.
Who can stop them? Can hormones hold
them back? can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And the generation prays
like a dying man with groans beyond
talking, with warrior cries,
sulphuric tears and
great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting.
Watching:
24-7-365
Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules,
shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide,
laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
laughing at labels,
fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mold them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless
to shake their resolve
at late-night parties
before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool,
dangerously attractive (on the inside).
On the outside? They hardly care!
They wear clothes like costumes:
to communicate and celebrate
but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their
popularity? They would lay down their
very lives, swap seats with the man on
death row, guilty as hell:
a throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears,
with sleepless nights and fuitless
days,
they pray as if it all depends on God
and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses Jesus
(He breathes out, they breathe in).
Their subconcious sings.
They had a blood transfusion with
Jesus.
Their words make demons scream
in shopping malls. Don't you hear
them coming?
Herald the wierdoes!
Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and
forgotten
with fire in their eyes!
They walk tall and trees applaud,
skyscrapers bow,
mountains are dwarfed
by these children of another
dimension.
Their prayers summont he Hound of
Heaven and invoke the ancient dream
of Eden.
And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;
it will come easily'
it will come soon.
How do I know?
Because this is the longing of creation
itself, the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is His today.
My distant hope is His 3-D.
And my feeble,
whispered,
faithless prayer
invokes a thunderous,
resounding,
bone-shaking
great "Amen!"
from countless angels,
from heroes of the faith,
from Christ Himself.
And He is the original dreamer,
the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
So this guy comes up to me and says,
"What's the vision? What's the big idea?"
I open my mouth, and the words come out
like this...
The vision?
The vision is Jesus:
obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones?
I see an army.
And they are free from materialism -
they laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could
eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday
they wouldn't even notice. They know the
meaning of the Matrix,
the way the West was won.
They are mobile like the wind,
they belong to the nations,
they need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil
and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free
yet they are slaves
of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision? The vision is holiness
that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity
long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.
Light flickers
from every secret motive,
every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps,
their Satan games.
This is an army
that would lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day
its soldiers choose to lose that they might
one day win the great
"Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical
on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don't need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards
and hear the crowds chanting again and again:
"COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground,
the whisper of history
in the making, foundations shaking,
revolutionaries dreaming once again.
Mystery is scheming in whispers,
conspiracy is breathing... This is the
sound of the underground
And the army is discipl(in)ed -
young people who beat their bodies into
submission. Every soldier would take a
bullet for his comrade at arms.
The tattoo on their back boasts
"for me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuiels the fire
of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners.
Martyrs.
Who can stop them? Can hormones hold
them back? can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And the generation prays
like a dying man with groans beyond
talking, with warrior cries,
sulphuric tears and
great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting.
Watching:
24-7-365
Whatever it takes they will give:
Breaking the rules,
shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide,
laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
laughing at labels,
fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mold them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless
to shake their resolve
at late-night parties
before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool,
dangerously attractive (on the inside).
On the outside? They hardly care!
They wear clothes like costumes:
to communicate and celebrate
but never to hide.
Would they surrender their image or their
popularity? They would lay down their
very lives, swap seats with the man on
death row, guilty as hell:
a throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears,
with sleepless nights and fuitless
days,
they pray as if it all depends on God
and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses Jesus
(He breathes out, they breathe in).
Their subconcious sings.
They had a blood transfusion with
Jesus.
Their words make demons scream
in shopping malls. Don't you hear
them coming?
Herald the wierdoes!
Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and
forgotten
with fire in their eyes!
They walk tall and trees applaud,
skyscrapers bow,
mountains are dwarfed
by these children of another
dimension.
Their prayers summont he Hound of
Heaven and invoke the ancient dream
of Eden.
And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;
it will come easily'
it will come soon.
How do I know?
Because this is the longing of creation
itself, the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.
My tomorrow is His today.
My distant hope is His 3-D.
And my feeble,
whispered,
faithless prayer
invokes a thunderous,
resounding,
bone-shaking
great "Amen!"
from countless angels,
from heroes of the faith,
from Christ Himself.
And He is the original dreamer,
the ultimate winner.
Guaranteed.
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