Habakkuk 1:1 (NKJV)
“The burden which the prophet Habakkuk saw.”
Habakkuk was God’s prophet, and one of the most popular verses in the bible concerning vision is contained in his book. The Lord said to him, “Write the vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it.” Before any vision, there is burden. Burdens are the birthplace of vision.
When I graduated from college, I took a job working for a college prep program. The primary reason that I took this job was because I had a burden for young people who wanted to go to college but needed help to get there. Many were ethnic minority youth from under resourced communities. The stark inequality in educational opportunities bothered me (and still does), and that burden led me to take that job. In that position, I was able to help prepare youth for college and also learned what I needed to do to create a vision of my own to help more youth. This job helped me discover that I needed a doctorate degree to implement this vision that the Lord was giving me. Years later, this experience equipped me to create a program to help students to successfully navigate the academic and social challenges of university life. The vision to create that program came from the burden that God allowed me to see many years ago.
Is there something that you see that is a burden to you? Are you bothered by some issue and find yourself thinking about how you can make a difference in that area? It might be that the Lord is allowing you to see and feel a burden, because he wants to birth a vision in you, a vision that can lift that heavy burden. The purpose of a vision is to solve a problem, so a vision from God will always follow a problem, and problems cause burdens. As you spend time with the Lord remember that burdens are the birthplace of vision. Talk to God about what you are seeing and feeling, and begin to ask questions about how you can be used to lift that burden. Something to consider: Write down one burden that you believe the Lord has allowed you to see?