longing to live a visionary life

About a week ago I was on a plane somewhere in between Newark and Hong Kong. And today I found myself on a ferry crossing the Hong Kong harbor:

This first week couldn't have been completed on a better note than attending Island ECC this evening. Brett did a great job of directing us back towards the truth that we need vision and guidelines in and over our lives. We all long for them. As children, that need showed up in not-so-subtle temper tantrums and over time has presented itself as the incessant repetition of the question, "Why?". During the first part of the message my brain reeled back through classes at Auburn when we learned the importance of teaching children boundaries early and the benefits it has for the family over time. In pure form, guidelines are made with our best interest at heart. They are not meant to be experienced as something that restricts us from experiencing life, but as direction for us to experience true life and a Love we don't deserve. The message tonight wrapped around what it means to live a visionary life, based on Micah 6:8. This particular verse talks about three things that the Lord requires of us; to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God. The end of the teaching did not lead us to merely stare at the surface of those three charges. But to look deeper into what living those things out in our lives really means. A visionary life is one that is counter-cultural. A visionary life does not function out of guilt, but rather from a heart changed by grace. A visionary life is evidenced by a response to injustice. Our response can not merely be a membership to a facebook group about ending world hunger, but bringing light to the darkness that exists within our eyesight. Our sensitivity to these things is felt in the condition of our hearts and our response to our environment. A visionary life is responding humbly to an invitation extended to us by the Almighty. The God who spoke creation into being has invited us to walk alongside him. My little brain can not fully understand the weight of the invitation. And I must confess that I do not daily live in recognition of that precious invitation but I long for it. I pray that we come to recognize this gift more with each day we're given.