Vision to Do God’s Work – Thoughts from the Edges.

Vision to Do God’s Work

Pastor Calvin Cook

November 18, 2025

Scripture: “O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will rebuild you with stones of turquoise, your foundations with lapis lazuli. I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of sparkling jewels, and all your walls of precious stones.”* — *Isaiah 54:11–12 (NIV)

Thinking this morning on the last few weeks and the way in which I have been seeing God’s handiwork in people’s lives, communities, and the church. Many of these moves of God have been surrounded and covered with prayer for days, months, and years.

Last evening we completed our first regular Church Conference for the Allegheny Ridge Covenant of Churches. In the Methodist world the Church/Charge Conference is the annual meeting that takes place to do the business of the church for the following years, such as setting Pastor’s salaries, approving officers for the following year, and speaking to the state and health of the church. One of the reports contained now in our conference reports is “The Vision of the Pastor”. If you know me well this is one of my passions and many times hindrances with others is casting vision and being a visionary.

This last year I have realized that there are many different types of vision.  There is a kind of vision that does not come from ambition, planning, or strategy. It comes from brokenness and having the vision to look beyond our brokenness through confession and discernment.  This applies not only to us as individuals but certainly to our families, our communities, and especially the institutional church.

Isaiah 54:11–12 gives us a glimpse of this brokenness that I speak about and reflect upon this morning in all those places that I mention. It comes from the places that have been “storm-tossed and not comforted.” It comes from the ruins God Himself promises to rebuild. This scripture is not speaking to those who have it all together or think they do, it is spoken to the ones who feel beaten, weary, overlooked, and unsure if anything good can grow again.

Yet God says: “I will rebuild you… I will lay your foundations… I will make your walls beautiful.” This is where vision begins — not with what you can accomplish, but with what God wants to restore.

Vision Requires Seeing What God Sees.

We just had Allen Scott Story Tour here in Kane and from the concert and I feel that from this holy time and movement brings me to this place to realize and embrace that when God looks at a broken life, He sees a story that can be rebuilt.

When God looks at a dwindling rural church.  He sees precious stones ready to shine again. When God sees a small, overlooked community, He sees a place He still loves enough to restore.

Where we see rubble, God sees foundations.

Where we see an end, God sees a new beginning.

Where we see what used to be, God sees what can be again only better.

Vision is not optimism — it is faith.

It is seeing the turquoise, the sapphires, and the rubies God intends to set in place even when all you see now is dust and debris.

Isaiah 54:11–12 speaks at least three truths:

1. God builds with beauty, not scraps. What He rebuilds is better than what was lost.

2. God rebuilds from the foundation up. We have to have a good strong, moral, and scripturally based foundation. Vision has to begin somewhere. Be aware of God’s vision for you. Vision begins in the heart before it becomes a reality.

3. God uses His people as living stones. You are part of how He rebuilds the world around you. This Is the Vision the Church needs today. Not a vision built on programs, perfection, or performance — but on relationship, restoration, renewal, revival and resurrection.

Which one of the three are you – the one who watches what is happening, the one who is making things happen, or the one who is still wondering what has happened.

God is not done. Not with you. Not with your community. Not with your calling. Not with His Church. You might be thinking of giving up but hear this GOD IS NOT GIVING UP ON YOU!

The question is no longer, “Can God rebuild?”

The question is: Will you see what He sees? Will you believe what He speaks? Will you rise to build with Him? That is the vision to do God’s work.

Prayer: Lord, open my eyes to see what You are rebuilding around me and within me. Give me Your vision — not based on what I see, but on what You promise. Use me. Rebuild my life. Rebuild the church, rebuild the community for Your glory. Make something beautiful where brokenness once existed. Make something beautiful from the rubel. And all for Your glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.