There must be hundreds of books published just this year that focus on visionary leadership. How exactly does one determine the future? How can we anticipate the needs of the public before our competitors? How can we see ahead, or at least create a vision that compels others to follow us?
We seem to think that the idea of visioning is a modern concept. There were no greater visionaries than the Wise Men. Those fellows were able to travel a great distance to anticipate the birth of a Messiah and, miracle of miracles, they actually found him.
What did the Wise Men do to anticipate the future? I believe that they did a few, quite simple things: they watched, they listened and they looked. They must have been watching the stars for years, reading about faith traditions beyond their own, and most definitely spending time in prayer and meditation. You can’t follow stars unless you are tuned into the Universe. They must have been listening.
When they heard about something incredible, about the rise of a Messiah who would change the world, they did not run and hide, they went out to meet that child. They were not afraid of change, they sought it out. They went out to meet that Messiah. They traveled great distances to find him, and they when they arrived, they worshiped him.
Peter M. Senge, in The Fifth Discipline, speaks of a great team as a group of people who function together in an extraordinary way, who trust one another and are able to listen with a level of intensity, to discover new possibilities together. I like to think of the Wise Men this way, like an ancient Think Tank, full of great minds who learned to listen to possibility together.
And when they found something extraordinary out there, they went out to meet it.
And when they arrived, they gave the very best of what they had.
And what happened after they left the manger? How did the rest of their lives go? We will never know. But I believe that they were changed, and that, from then on, everything else that happened to them was impacted by the peace that they felt that day, they day that they came face to face with Christ. I imagine that nothing was ever the same again. I believe that they were marked as Christ’s own forever.
