I am privileged and very grateful to have a role in a film about the writer and speaker Josh McDowell, filming in Traverse City, Michigan.  McDowell is one of my heroes so this is a very special treat for me.  Director Cris Krusen says I’m the villain in the film and according to McDowell’s true story, that is the case.  But McDowell’s life of faith testifies to the triumph of the true King over all villainy.

My novel “A Season Of Miracles” was a Finalist in two categories at the Christy Awards, “First Novel” and “Contemporary Fiction.” I did not win, but it was a thrill to be there with my wife Rebecca and my mom!  The keynote speaker was Randall Wallace who wrote “Braveheart” and “Pearl Harbor” and directed “Secretariat.”

Many of us have said, more than once, we would like to be more like Jesus.  Do we really?  How does that happen?  Do we simply count on God to “drop more Jesus” on top of us as the days and years go by?  Maybe we believe going to a church building regularly is a magic formula that makes us become more like Jesus.  We definitely should gather with other believers regularly to worship and celebrate God.  But is something else involved, beyond church attendance, when we seriously follow after Christ?

Do we believe sanctification (growing in the Lord) is a little bit automatic or even entirely automatic?  Doesn’t the Bible say “He who began a good work in you WILL perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus?” (Philippians 1:6)  Yes, but Paul also writes “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” (Phil. 2:12)  Then the very next verse reads “for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

I want to continue to trust God for my sanctification.  But trusting God does not mean I play no role in my sanctification.  I may trust my doctor to patch me up physically when I am hurt, but if I don’t OBEY my doctor’s instructions about how to maintain and improve my health, then I don’t trust my doctor.  The doctor-God analogy is imperfect, and happily so.  Our spiritual health includes the miracle that God often overrules my sin, my warped self-interest, and grows me spiritually in spite of my sinful efforts to stay a spiritual dwarf.  Even so, trusting God means obeying Him.  There are things I need to do, consistently, if I am to grow as I ought.

But I don’t want to.  I’d rather worship and serve Rusty than God.  At least I think that’s what I’d rather do.  So I need God to grant me a vision quest now and then.

Native North Americans used to talk about something they called a “vision quest.”  Those English words are the closest we can come to their concept.  Basically, when a person embraces a vision quest, they envision what they wish to see happen, and they set out on a determined quest to see that thing happen.  The vision feeds the quest.  Without the requisite robust vision, the quest will not be realized.

Usually a vision quest involves a noble quest, a difficult task.  Climbing Mount Everest would be a typical vision quest.  Building a Community Center that helps meet the needs of the Community might be a vision quest.

A vision quest could be very simple.  A teenager might make doing their homework a vision quest.  Doing their homework consistently might be a stiffer vision quest.  Doing their homework consistently and excellently is an even larger vision quest.  The vision and the quest are even more dramatic if the teenager has a history of not doing homework, or not doing it well.

A vision quest, by nature and definition, is a spiritual undertaking.  It is a way of focusing our spirit, our will, on a goal and embracing the means necessary to achieve the goal, and then setting out on the quest.  It is not just “being intentional,” though that is involved.  Virtually all of our life would be more Christ-like if we lived more “intentionally.”  That is, we need to intend to do certain things and (maybe more important) intend to BE a certain kind of person.  Living intentionally is rare; those who do it stand out.  If we sincerely intend to be Christlike, we are at least desiring to escape that haunted forest of “I never know what is going on; life just happens to me.”  But to really get out of that forest and onto the narrow road of thinking, living, and feeling as Christ did, we need more than good intentions.  We need something like a vision quest.

When a young person grows up in a Christian home, they can tend to mimic the Christian activities of their parents or guardians.  At some point the youth comes to a crossroads where they consider the validity of their parents’ Christian faith.  They consider if Christianity is true and if it makes a difference.  If they answer yes, it is a difference-making truth, then they are on the path to constructing and embracing a vision quest whereby they will live intentionally.  They have a vision (to live as Christ) and they are on a quest to see the vision come to physical reality.  That is, they want to actually live, think, feel, and love as Christ did.  They side with the apostle Paul “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” (Phil. 3:10, the quintessential Christian vision quest).

I think most Christians do not stray from Christ’s path by committing dramatic sins.  Most of us Christians stunt our growth by not envisioning our growth, thereby not intending to grow.  We flop around in the haunted “forest of no intentions,” like tragic wingless birds that are intended to fly.  We lack a vision to be Christ-like.  A vision that compels the incredible quest to “be more like Jesus.”