By Pastor Scott Seidler

Numbers 11:5

“We remember the leeks and cucumbers we had in Egypt.”

There is a common sentiment in organizational leadership that simply states, “Vision leaks.”  The notion behind it is that human groups tend progressively toward entropy and chaos as opposed to a sustained unified purpose.

No surprise here.  Our Christian conviction regarding sin and its self-centering power in our lives has held this truth to be self-evident for centuries, from just after time began.  What a group of people commits to initially is always endangered by the personal desires and ambitions of each individual member of it.

What’s astonishing is the often miserable options with which we replace great calls to future group accomplishment.  Take, for instance, the Israelites fleeing Egypt for the (vision) of the promised land.  The road was no doubt hard and the journey no doubt long.  But the cry of their hearty stomachs was tiny onions and cucumbers.  TUBER-ISH VEGETABLES!  How is it possible that for these folks their entire existence could be boiled down to plants?  Honestly.

Mark well, the power of self-centering sin, how deceptive it is.  The power of evil at work in each of us to turn away from the vision of serving more greatly a Great God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—this power of evil is indeed great.  No wonder Joseph in Genesis regarded the work of God he had been set to do as part of a “great salvation (Genesis 45-50).

For to such as these (as us) who strive and struggle to keep vision clean and clear, God reminds us that we are redeemed and we are still together.  Confessing and collaborating we can continue the journey toward the calling God has given our congregation, our families and ourselves to serve Him and bring glory to His Son.