On Setting Goals

This post is written to link with Five Minute Friday: write for five minutes on a one-word prompt.  The prompt today is “goal.”

I wonder how you feel about goals.  Are you the sort of person who needs them to stay on track and loves to have a target, or do you struggle with the pressure to achieve and the frustration of unfulfilled goals and wonder if there’s any point?

There are definitely times when I find goals helpful.  If I’m to achieve anything, I need a deadline, and I will do whatever it takes to make it happen.  If the target is “whenever,” the chances are it will never happen.  And since I began being more intentional in setting goals for myself around things like diet, exercise and getting more sleep, there has been a big improvement.  I may not always have met the goals I set, but there has been progress I doubt I’d have made without them.

On the other hand, if I have goals but no clear sense of how to work towards them, I find it frustrating.  I can see where I want to be, but I have no idea how to get there, and yet I can’t get rid of the persistent desire that draws me towards that goal.

Yet the question that really matters is not, “What are my goals?” but, “What are God’s goals?”

His timing is not our timing, and his ways are not our ways.  And I think often his goals for us are less to do with our achievements and more to do with our character.

One of my favourite quotes on this topic comes from Oswald Chambers:

“If you can stay in the midst of turmoil unperplexed and calm because you see Jesus, that is God’s plan for your life.  Not that you might be able to say, “I have done this and that and now it’s all right.”  We have an idea that God is leading us to a certain goal, a desired haven.  He is not.  To God the question of our getting to a particular end is a mere incident.  What we call the process, God calls the end.  God’s purpose is that you depend on him and his power now.  God’s purpose is that you see him walking on the waves.
No shore in sight.
No success.
Just the absolute certainty that it is all right because you see him.”

Lord, may our goal above all else be to know you and to trust you more, to walk with you and to know you walking with us.