Stock

When you’re in the valley . . .

. . . You must look up for the vision.

“Taking stock” of our lives does not come easily.

Isaiah points out, being in the “valley of vision” means looking to the mountain.

Find out why and how by watching our Truth in Two episode (full text below).

The audit of our lives comes from God, not the IRS.

Subscribe to “Truth in Two” videos from Comenius (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), hosts a weekly radio program with diverse groups of guests (1 minute video), and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).

Picture Credit: Luke Renoe, Snappy Goat

FULL TEXT

TAKE STOCK. The phrase originates from the early days of mercantile assessment. A businessperson literally looks at the stock – merchandise – on the shelves to consider future purchases. The phrase means, “What do we have now and what will we need later?”  These days, forecasters, prognosticators, and leadership gurus have suggested we not miss this opportunity to prepare for the future.

Yet, the future depends on the past. “You are being audited” is one of the most heart-stopping phrases known to the American taxpayer. The one who “takes stock” is not simply the in-house reviewer. “Taking stock” is often accomplished by an outside audit who is checking past accounts. The auditor, one not associated with the business, is the one who makes a judgment.

So “taking stock” is not simply to assess what will come but what we’ve done. Our appraisal of the future should consider the past. Such, I believe, is the case with the phrase from Isaiah 22:1, referencing Jerusalem as “the valley of vision.” As some have suggested, the valley-view is not the best way to get the long-view. The person looking up does not see what going down.

Perhaps we are in the best place to see the vision in the valley because we are forced to look up. Isaiah 22 is a context of judgment. “You did not look to Him” (22:11) is the Auditor’s oracle. God’s people did not “regard the deeds of the Lord or see the work of His hands (Isaiah 5:12).

The Outside Audit of The Church should not simply be reduced to “embrace change” or “prepare for the future.” At the Comenius Institute we believe the kind of “taking stock” we need as institutions and individuals is an intensive evaluation; one done from the Outside Auditor. Being in “the valley of vision” should cause all of us to take stock of what we have done considering what is to come.

For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, President of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.