To crave vision lest you perish is a right hunger, yet mark well what kind of vision the proverb commends. It is not a private revelation of novelties, a secret blueprint for your own ambitions dressed in sacred garb. The vision that keeps a soul from casting off restraint is the revealed will of God, His Word, His law, His gospel purpose made known in Scripture and sealed by the Spirit. We are waves of His great sea; we wash up, seem to retire, yet the divine sea of His purpose moves on unbroken. Your personal goals, if they spring from the unrenewed heart, are but the foam on that wave. What you need first is not a vision of what you shall do, but a clear sight of what Christ has done, the bleeding Jesus, the Lamb upon Mount Sion, the propitiation for sin. That is the vision which snatches a firebrand from the burning.
You speak of not following your own goals. This is the deep unsearchable wisdom: that God effects His purpose while the creature remains absolutely free. Your own strivings cannot manufacture a single spark of heavenly light. Divine sovereignty never oversteps the bounds of the covenant, and the promise is the eternal purpose written out for you to read. So do not stare inward, sifting your fancies for some mystical flash. The vision that saves is outside you, in the Word. Give me but a word out of God’s mouth, and I can live upon it. The Spirit must go with that Word, or it is wasted breath; yet He does go with it, transmuting the common stone into a jewel for Christ’s crown. You are God’s pupil, taught from youth by many struggles, by chastening that never casts out, by object lessons of His work in your own heart and other men’s. He will teach you to trust His name, and as you see His work, you will wonder and speak of it. That is the vision: beholding the Lamb, and then declaring His wondrous works.
Do not imagine that a vision means a sudden ecstasy that bypasses your understanding. The revelation in time is a transcript of the counsel of eternity. The rainbow still girds the throne, and God’s absolute sovereignty only makes His promise more sure. Read Christ’s witness to holiness, in Him was no sin. Read His witness to love, He spared not His own Son. That is the object lesson set before your eyes. If you come beneath the cross and trustingly look up to God’s dear Son, you shall be saved, and in that salvation your true purpose blooms. Many of us once crawled about ashamed, clothed with the disapproval our sin deserved, yet effectual vocation plucked us forth. He who began the work will not put you to shame. Your prayer is answered not by a private itinerary, but by a Person. You shall enjoy the constant vision of His presence. I looked, and lo, a Lamb. Go forth asking, am I God’s witness? And He will supply the vision in His own way.