During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us". After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. (Acts 16:9-10) One of the benefits of being in a yoked parish relationship is that I have the honor of working with Rev. Paul Marzahn from CROSSROADS CHURCH.  The two of us often share ideas for ministry and work together on a regular basis.  Our weekly devo this week comes from him: As we have been doing our Vision Series at CROSSROADS I have been blessed by spending more time listening to God. It has helped me to hear what God has in store for me. It has reminded me that God has incredible plans to help transform lives through the CROSSROADS ministry. I have been hearing from others during this message series about how God is speaking to them as well. One thing I learned through the years is that a lot of people receive dreams and visions for the future but many never act of them. A speaker I heard once said it well - "The world doesn't need your dreams, it needs your actions." In other words, if we don't bring our visions into reality they don't exist.   How do we move from vision casting to vision doing? You simply start. You start living in the vision. I love how Paul in today's Scripture hears from God and responds. He doesn't ask permission of the Jerusalem council. He doesn't take a church vote. He acts on the vision God gives him. Many of us do not move forward with the direction God has for us because of one simple word - FEAR. We are afraid we might fail. We might get embarrassed or we may make some mistakes. We sabotage ourselves before we begin. The truth is the fear will never go away. Whenever we are doing something risky or significant the fear will follow. We have to remember to push forward anyway. We start moving toward the vision and the vision will help us keep in focus what we are doing. That is why alignment is so important. A great example of alignment is sailing. I love to sail when I take the youth kids to RED ROCK Camp during the summer. What I have had to learn about sailing is you will seldom go straight. You set a mark on the horizon and you point the boat toward that object. But the wind, the waves, and other factors Aligning With God’s Vision - Jan. 25th