A More Elite Man

Vision: Guidance from Higher

Every Ranger mission begins with guidance from higher headquarters. That is to say, Rangers don’t just pull their mission’s objective out of thin air. The commanding officer tells the Ranger where he is to go and generally what he is to do when he arrives. The Ranger’s job is to (1) understand that objective and (2) come up with the plan for getting there and the details of what to do upon arrival.

One of the fundamentals of being a more elite man is to honestly seek guidance from higher headquarters regarding your objective—that is, your life’s vision. In other words, a more elite man needs to look to God for his life’s vision, direction, and objective rather than pulling it out of thin air. The man who does this will be truly blessed. On the other hand, when a man tries to find his way in life apart from God, he does so at his own peril and normally ends up disoriented and lost in the woods of life.

This concept of life navigation is nothing new. Men have been trying to guide themselves without God’s guidance since ancient times and have been failing miserably at life navigation ever since. For example, consider this Bible verse: “In those days . . . everyone did what seemed right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). In other words, the men were trying to do life navigation with nothing more than their own internal sense of guidance. And what did that produce? Well, if you were to skim the pages of the book of Judges, you’d see that the culture of that day was eaten up with things like disobedience to God, idolatry, greedy materialism, rampant sexual immorality, corrupt religious leaders, robbery, gang rape, and kidnapping. (Sounds a lot like twenty-first century America, doesn’t it?) Yes, the entire culture of that day was totally lost in the woods of life! But that shouldn’t surprise us. After all, think about what Proverbs 14:12 tells us: “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end leads to destruction.

So what does it look like to receive your guidance and vision from higher headquarters? Consider this powerful passage from the Bible:

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way, walk in it. . . . I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go [so that] your peace would be like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea, your descendants like the sand, and your children like its numberless grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed before me.” (Isaiah 30:21; 48:17, 19)

Take a minute to consider what God promises in this passage. First and foremost, he promises to guide us toward what is “best.” You know, there’s a lot of chatter in our world today about what we should do, how we should live, and where we should go. Everybody wants to give us their opinion on life, happiness, and prosperity. But who’s to say what’s really best? I believe it’s safe to say that God is probably the only voice fully qualified to tell us what’s best. After all, he has unlimited insight into our past, present, future, and our very being. He also understands better than anyone the full value of life and relationship success. That’s probably why he identifies things like peace, righteousness, and legacy (i.e., descendants and children—in short, family) as the goals that every man should seek and treasure. In fact, we might even say that those are the grid-points on God’s high ground for every man: peace, righteousness, and legacy.

So what exactly are peace, righteousness, and legacy? In a nutshell, peace and righteousness refer to a healthy relationship with God and healthy relationships with those around us. This concept is best illustrated in Bible passages such as Matthew 22:37-40, where Jesus answered a question about which commandment was the greatest. He said:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. All of the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

A right relationship with God begins through Jesus Christ, who died that every man might have his sins forgiven and receive a new, everlasting life. And the new life that Jesus gives to those who personally receive him allows a man both to love God and to love his neighbor. Apart from Jesus, a man can do neither of lasting significance.

And what is legacy? Legacy is an all-encompassing word that includes the concept of a sound, enduring, and God-centered marriage that produces children and future descendants who love God and walk in his truth. Think about these words from Psalm 128:1-6 and listen to the ongoing blessings of legacy:

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive plants around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children’s children!