Work Backward
From the Series—Visioneering
July 23, 2002This week’s evotional begins a new series of evotionals titled Visioneering: How to Get Where God Wants You to Go. Feel free to forward it to a friend.
New York City, 1931. America was in the depths of the Great Depression and a businessman named Conrad Hilton was staring foreclosure in the face. People weren’t traveling and his hotel chain was suffering the consequences. Hilton was actually borrowing money from a bellhop so that he could eat. That year, 1931, Conrad Hilton came across a photograph of the Waldorf Astoria--the quintessential hotel with 6 kitchens, 200 chefs, 500 waiters, 2,000 rooms, and its own private hospital and railroad.
Hilton said it was “an outrageous time to dream,” but he clipped the photo out of the magazine and wrote across it, “The Greatest of them all.” He placed the photograph under the glass top of his desk. Whenever he moved offices or changed desks, the picture remained under the glass top. He never lost sight of his goal. In October of 1949, eighteen years after clipping the photograph, his dream became reality. Conrad Hilton acquired the Waldorf.
According to psychologists, if an object is removed from a baby’s field of sight that object ceases to exist. They have not developed the capacity known as object permanence. With kids it’s out of sight, out of mind. The same is true with vision. If you want to keep something in mind you better keep it in sight. For eighteen years, Hilton kept his eye on the goal. He had vision permanence.
Stephen Covey says, “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”
The End is the Beginning
Visioneering is about beginning with the end in mind. Most people see what is. Visioneers see what could be and should be and work backwards. In the words of Hebrews 11:1, vision is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”
NCC meets in the movie theaters at Union Station. Union Station is more than a train station. It is home to 125 retail shops and restaurants, as well as one church! Nearly 100,000 people pass through Union Station everyday.
The station has a storied history. Princes, Prime Ministers and Presidents--everyone from Khrushchev to Churchill to Queen Elizabeth--have walked through the hallowed hallways. During World War II, Union Station was the principal departure point for sailors and soldiers. Information clerks were set up to answer eighty thousand questions a day. During the hot and humid summertime, before the days of air conditioning, thousands of Washingtonians would pack the main hall with its high ceilings and stone walls to cool off or go splashing in the Columbus Plaza fountain out front.
It’s hard to imagine a Washington without a Union Station, but the site where Union Station sits used to be a swamp! Before construction even began, it took laborers an entire year and four million cubic yards of dirt to fill in the swamp. That’s enough dirt to pack eighty thousand train hoppers stretching six hundred miles! Not only was this site swampland, it was on the edge of what was called “Swampoodle"--a rundown shantytown. Richard Lee, the author of Mr. Lincoln’s City, said it was the part of town notorious for its dirtiness and crime. The site Union Station sits on would still be swampland next to shantytown if it weren’t for a visionary architect named Daniel Burnham who said, “Make no small plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood.”
Everything starts with vision--every business, every church, every invention, every building, every painting was once an idea in someone’s mind. An entrepreneur or missionary or inventor or architect or artist had a vision. And that vision became reality.
All Things Are Created Twice
Stephen Covey says all things are created twice. There is a mental creation and a physical creation. Buildings start out as blueprints.
I Chronicles 28:11 says, “Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement. He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind.”
This the first creation--the Spirit gives David a detailed set of blueprints for the Temple. In his mind’s eye, David sees a mental picture of everything from the portico to the inner rooms. I don’t know exactly how God does this, but the fact of the matter is that while neurologists can trace brain waves via electroencephalographs, millions of signals crisscrossing millions of synapses is still a mystery! I don’t know how God does it, I just know that God gives ideas and impressions, and sometimes an entire set of blueprints! Joey Reiman says, “I believe that many of my best ideas are as much spiritual Ahas! as intellectual ones.” The Temple wasn’t a good idea. It was a God idea. And there’s a big difference!
Everything starts with vision--the first creation. But the Temple wasn’t built in a day! From start to finish--from the “spiritual Aha” to the finished product--it took seven years!
It may take seven years to build a Temple. It may take eighteen years to acquire the Waldorf Astoria. It takes time to turn dreams into reality, but God always finishes what He starts. Philippians 1:6 says, “I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
The Judgment Seat
In his book, Seven Secrets to Spiritual Success, Wood Kroll shares about a personal and profound ritual. It could revolutionize your life if you put it into practice: begin everyday at the judgment seat of Christ.
Kroll says, “In 1973 I decided I needed to begin every day at the judgment seat. After all, if everything we enjoy for all eternity is awarded at the judgment seat of Christ, shouldn’t we know now what the Lord is looking for in our lives, rather than wait until then, when it’s too late? Makes sense to me. So everyday I start there and work backward.”