Marcus had been a dispatcher at a trucking company in El Paso for nineteen years. He knew every driver by name. He knew which ones could be trusted with a tight delivery window and which ones needed a call at four in the morning to get moving. When a load went wrong at the border or a truck broke down outside Van Horn, Marcus was the man who fixed it.
In 2023, the company tested a new routing system that used artificial intelligence to plan loads and assign drivers. Marcus helped train it. He corrected its mistakes and told the managers where it was wrong. He assumed that made him valuable.
In the spring of 2025, the system went live across the company. Two months later Marcus was called into an office, thanked for his service and handed a severance letter. He was forty-seven. He drove home, sat in his truck in the driveway for an hour, and did not tell his wife until after dinner.
For weeks he applied for dispatcher jobs and heard nothing. Every company was moving the same way. He felt like a man standing in a valley that had been dry for so long that he had forgotten what rain looked like.
What Marcus lacked was not ability. It was vision. He could see the job he had lost very clearly. He could not see anything beyond it.
Vision Is the Sum of Your Expectations
Fulfilled expectations are vision-driven. In fact, vision can be described as the sum of a person’s expectations. Without expectations, people lose direction, and a lack of direction leads to unfulfilled dreams. The proverb says it more starkly: where there is no vision, the people perish.
To set, meet and exceed expectations, you need four kinds of sight. I call them hindsight, foresight, insight and oversight. Together they make vision.
Hindsight + Foresight + Insight + Oversight = Vision
Hindsight
Hindsight is the ability to understand something after it has happened, even if you did not understand it at the time. It lets you borrow the lessons of the past and apply them to a future expectation, so that you avoid repeating a mistake or repeat a success on purpose.
Scripture shows even God reflecting on what has been: “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” (Genesis 6:6). Hindsight is not regret for its own sake. It is honest looking back so that the next step is wiser.
Foresight
Foresight is the ability to predict, or to act on, what will happen or be needed in the future. It is knowledge gained by looking forward, based on a careful reading of the present. Expectations should be set according to where we want to go, after examining what has happened and what is happening now.
“Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.” (1 Peter 1:2)
Insight
Insight is the capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of a person, a situation or a thing. It often comes after a period of reflection, or it arrives suddenly, like a light switched on. It gives us the power of discernment, which brings us close to fulfilling what we expect.
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14)
Oversight
The word oversight has two meanings, and both matter.
In one sense, an oversight is something we fail to notice. When we do not observe what we should, we form faulty expectations. Marcus’s first oversight was assuming that his usefulness would keep him safe.
In the other sense, oversight is the act of overseeing something to prevent errors. A legislature provides oversight of government agencies to review, monitor and supervise their work. Every expectation needs the same. You are the first overseer of your own expectations, but you should not be the only one.
Faith and Sight
“(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)” (2 Corinthians 5:7)
Some readers will ask how this fits with all the talk of sight. The four kinds of vision in this chapter are not a replacement for faith. They are how faith pays attention. Faith tells you that God has a future for you. Vision helps you see the path toward it and notice the ditches that need digging. Ezekiel saw the glory of God “according to the vision that I saw in the plain” (Ezekiel 8:4). God often meets us in the place where we have learned to see.
What has changed since the first edition
Vision has never been harder or more necessary. Ten years ago, many careers came with a path that was visible for decades. Today, a technology that few people had heard of in 2021 is reshaping office work, transport, customer service, design and medicine. Many people feel like Marcus, unable to see anything beyond the job or the life they have lost.
At the same time, we are flooded with other people’s visions. Social media offers a stream of polished plans, side hustles and success stories. It is easy to borrow someone else’s picture of the future and call it your own. Borrowed vision rarely survives the first hard season.
Dig this week
- Write down what happened the last time you expected something similar to what you are expecting now. What would you do differently?
- If you catch yourself only daydreaming about the outcome, then stop and write the biggest obstacle in the way and one step around it.
- Make room as if it is coming: name one person who will meet you weekly or monthly to review your progress, and put the first meeting in the calendar.
Questions to ponder
- Are you naturally curious? List two problems you solved because you asked questions.
- What did the last ten years teach you that you are not yet using?
- Where is your work, your industry or your community going in the next five years? What will be needed there?
- Do you trust your instincts? Name one decision in the last six months that came from insight rather than research.
- Is the vision you are pursuing truly yours, or borrowed from someone else’s story?
More questions for small groups are in the book.
Lord, open my eyes to see what the past has taught me, where the road ahead leads, and what You are saying now; and give me faithful people to watch over the vision with me. Amen.
How ready are you for what you are expecting?
Score yourself on all eleven elements in about two minutes. You will see where to dig first.