Vision and Reality

      "We always have visions, before a thing is made real.  When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations, and we are apt to say it is no use to go no. Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the valley of humiliation.
     God gives us the vision, then He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we have patience. Think of the leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.
      The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision.  Don't lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you my try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you."  -Oswald Chambers

"I will stand my watch and set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and I will answer when I am corrected. Then the Lord answered me and said: 'Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is for an appointed time; But in the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will not tarry." 

Habakkuk 2:1-3