Vision in the Chaos — Encouragement for Christian Parents

I've been living in three books at once lately.

Book 4 is in its third round of edits — my editor's comments stacked up like firewood. Book 5 is finished and resting. Book 6 is just beginning, which is a polite way of saying it's mostly a blinking cursor. Add five kids under eight and a full-time job to that, and you have a fairly honest picture of my life right now.

Truthfully, it hasn't been one dramatic moment that got me thinking about this. It's been the summer itself. . . day after day packed as full as the day will hold, every hour spoken for before it arrives. Even two weeks of parental leave — all four big kids home with me — didn't slow it down. You just look up in July and realize you've been running since June.

Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I started chewing on a question I haven't been able to put down: how do we as parents keep vision in the midst of chaos?

The vision doesn't die. It blurs.

Here's what I've noticed, in my own house and in conversations with other parents doing their best: vision almost never dies dramatically. There's no single morning where you wake up and decide to stop building what you were building.

It blurs.

It blurs the way a photograph blurs — not because the subject moved, but because the camera did. The math lesson, the laundry, the calendar that somehow fills itself. . . none of it is bad. Most of it is good and necessary. That's the sneaky part. The vision for your family doesn't get crowded out by evil; it gets crowded out by errands.

If you're reading this, I'd wager you have a vision for your life and your family. You know what you're building — kids with real character, a home where good things grow, little ones being formed into children of the living God. You wouldn't be this tired if you didn't care this much. So hear me clearly: this isn't a post about getting a vision. I believe many of you have one. This is about keeping it in focus when the days are loud.

Write it plain enough to read at a run

I love this liturgy above. It's a small thing worth quoting while grinding the beans and pouring the cup in the morning (or steeping the tea, if that's your thing). And there's a line in Habakkuk that spurs me the same way when things get loud. The prophet is standing in his own chaos — real chaos, not the scheduling kind — and God tells him:

"Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it." (Habakkuk 2:2)

I love that. God doesn't say slow down and you'll see it. He says write it plain enough that a runner can read it.

Because here's the reality — the running isn't going anywhere. I've written before: don't wait for the world to slow down, because it won't. The parents I know aren't going to stop moving anytime soon, and frankly, neither am I. The question was never how to escape the chaos. The question is whether the vision is written plainly enough to be readable at speed — in the minivan, at the stove, in the 9 p.m. hour when you're deciding whether to read one more chapter or fold one more basket.

A vision you can only see on a silent retreat isn't a vision. It's a vacation. The vision that shapes a family is the one you can read at a run.

My wife knows this instinctively. When work takes me away from the family, she slips little written pieces of our vision — encouragement, plain words, small enough to carry — onto sticky notes tucked where I'll find them. It helps me run, for sure.

The day and the decade

I'll be honest with you — I need this word as much as anyone.

The blur, when it comes for me, isn't doubt about the vision. It's the tug-of-war between the day and the decade — the dad my kids need this afternoon, and the longer calling that needs me over years. For me that calling happens to look like twelve books, Lord willing. For you it might look like twelve years of school mornings. Being fully present today can feel like stealing from the long calling. Working the long calling can feel like stealing from today. I suspect every parent knows some version of that tug.

What I keep re-learning is that they were never two visions competing. The afternoon and the decade are the same work. . . the same kingdom, built at two different distances. And none of it was ever really about the tasks anyway — the books, the lessons, the schedules. It's about the Person all of it is supposed to point to — the virtues of God made visible enough for our kids to emulate. For him, through him, and unto him.

That's the thing about a plainly written vision. . . it doesn't demand that you feel visionary. It just has to be legible on the days you don't.

Three ways to write it plain

Nothing here is revolutionary. That's rather the point.

1. Write it down — one sentence. If the vision for your family can't fit on a notecard, it isn't a vision yet. It's a mood. We are raising children who love God and love people. Habakkuk got tablets; you get a sticky note. Write it, and put it where the running happens — the minivan dash, the kitchen window, the bathroom mirror.

2. Return. Don't streak. You don't need a perfect habit; you need a homing instinct. My own journaling is off-and-on — more off than on, some months — but every return refreshes my soul. Ten minutes of reading aloud. Prayer over breakfast. The same question at dinner. Small and returned-to beats grand and rare, every time.

3. Stop running for sixty seconds. Not a sabbatical — a minute. The runner in Habakkuk still had to look at the tablet. If you never stop, even the plainest vision goes unread. Stillness isn't the reward for finishing the work; it's how you remember what the work is for.

You're closer than the chaos says you are

Here's the provocation I'll leave you with, and I mean it as encouragement wearing work clothes:

Showing up every day, willing to walk the narrow path — that is the vision being kept.

We tend to think of vision as the far-off thing and the daily grind as the obstacle to it. But the bedtime chapter, the repeated apology, the patience you found at 4 p.m. when there was no earthly reason for it — that's not what's in the way of the vision. That is the vision, being built at the only speed families are ever built: one ordinary day at a time.

So trade the blur for the plain line. Write it down. Keep it small and daily. Read it at a run.

The chaos is loud, but it doesn't get the last word in your house. You've already decided what does.

With love and blessings,

Andrew K. Johnston

P.S. — If you're in a season where the read-aloud is one of the small, daily things holding your vision together, the audiobook of Book 1 of The Adventures of Bo and Mr. Quillery is free — I narrate it myself. It's my favorite way to hand a family the front door of this story. https://www.andrewkjohnston.com/freeaudiobook