The world has always been scornful of dreamers.  “Here comes that dreamer!”  Joseph’s  brothers said to one another.  “Come now, let’s kill him…Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams”... Genesis 37:19.

So dreamers have to become in turn thinkers, planners, and workers, and that demands industry or hard labour.  Men of vision need to become men of action.  Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of electrical devices, defined genius as “1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”  All great leaders find this to be true.  Behind their apparently effortless performance there lies the most rigorous and painstaking self-discipline.  A good example is the world-renowned pianist, Paderewski.  He spent hours in practice every day.  It was not unknown for him to repeat a bar or phrase fifty times to perfect it.  Queen Victoria once said to him, after she had heard him play, “Mr. Paderewski, you are a genius.”  That may be, Ma’am,” he replied, “but before I was a genius, I was a drudge.”

 It was not enough for Moses to dream of the land flowing with milk and honey; he had to organize the Israelite rabble into at least the semblance of a nation and lead them through the dangers and hardships of the desert before they could take possession of the Promised Land.  Nehemiah was inspired by his vision of the rebuilt Holy City, but first he had to gather materials to reconstruct the wall and weapons to defend it.

 The combination of vision and industry is needed.