2,000 Percent Living Lesson Three: Improve Your Goals

Pick better life objectives
through prayer and consultation
with your family and friends.

And we know that all things
work together for good
to those who love God,
to those who are the called
according to His purpose.

— Romans 8:28 (NKJV)

Very few people have written goals. As a result, most
people direct their actions to please anyone who makes a
demand of them in light of how obliging they feel that day.
With that decision-making approach, it’s easy to feel
pulled in all directions at once while vaguely wanting more
for oneself. Who wouldn’t feel dissatisfied with a life like
that?

It’s not enough just to start having written goals: You
have to pick appropriate goals that lead you towards
what’s good for you and those you care about. Most
people look for help with goal setting, but exercises
conducted by secular leaders often don’t help much to
aim a person’s life in a better direction. While sitting in
during many such exercises, I’ve seen what people
usually select as goals. A typical list looks something
like this (except for being more detailed about each
item):

• A nicer place to live
• Career progress
• Vast increase in financial assets
• Good education for children
• Early retirement
• After retiring with a pile of money, some ego-satisfying
way to serve needy people

The logic behind such a list might be summarized as
follows: “I want a lot more for me and plenty of education
for my children (so I won’t have to support them after
they are grown); and after enjoying the good life for a long
time, I’m willing to share a little of my time and money
with others.” Can such a life of primarily doing more for
“me, me, me” be completely satisfying? It’s clear that
many people think so, yet research shows that people
with higher incomes, greater possessions, finer homes,
and more financial assets aren’t especially happier than
those with less.

That perspective of wanting more materially and
financially reminds me of people who think that all their
problems will be solved if they win the lottery.
Experience can provide a different perspective: Two
years later, many lottery winners are broke and report
that they led happier lives before hitting their “lucky”
number.

In addition to the potential disappointment and
unhappiness of seeking too much material self-
gratification, such lists also present another danger:
Because those who make such lists immediately begin
redirecting their time on making more money and
accelerating career progress, material goals can help
draw people away from following Jesus and serving
Him. With so much attention on worldly things, the
wee, small voice of the Holy Spirit may also be
ignored. More fundamentally, such a list causes some
people to rely more on themselves and less on God. In
the process, such people usually fail to consider that
they lack some of those things they want because the
things wouldn’t be good for them:

No good thing will He withhold
From those who walk uprightly.

— Psalm 84:11 (NKJV)

Why do people fall into these self-indulgent goal-setting
and life-direction errors? It’s because so many people
either don’t know or don’t believe what the Bible has to
say about what they should do.

Following Lesson One’s directions to read the Bible and
pray daily will help to eliminate this problem of seeking to
do your will, rather than His will. Picking better goals that
reflect His will helps even more.

Such lists of inappropriate goals can also encourage the
list writers to draw away from their family and friends.
Your children need more than a college education:
They need first and foremost loving parents who guide
them in the right ways, yet playing a loving role in the
lives of your family and friends is often missing from such
goal lists.

Review potential goals with your family and friends
before making a final decision to prevent moving away
from God, your family, and your friends. If your family
and friends are all Christians, chances are that they will
either point out any areas where you are pulling away
from God or direct you to a pastor or Christian
counselor who can help you consider the Godliness of
your goals. Your family and friends are also sure to
notice where you are ignoring what they need in favor
of something that they don’t need and don’t care about.

Let’s look at a better process for setting goals that will
help you follow the Lord and serve the needs and
preferences of your family and friends. With such a life
course, you will also make better progress because
you’ll have God’s support for your goals.

Pray for and Seek His Guidance
before Setting Goals

I know that You can do everything,
And that no purpose of Yours
can be withheld from You.

— Job 42:2 (NKJV)

The first mistake that secular goal-advisors make is to
encourage you to follow their instructions rather than
the Lord’s. If your church offers a workshop for setting
Godly life goals, be sure to participate. If not, go to the
Lord in prayer and seek His directions before you start
work on setting life goals. Keep praying for His guidance
through the Holy Spirit while you are working on
accomplishing your goals.

While considering goals, many possibilities will occur to
you. At that point, go to God again in prayer and ask Him
what He thinks of those goals for you. Through events,
words you are drawn to in the Bible, and the quiet voice
of the Holy Spirit, you will receive feedback on those
potential goals. As you wait patiently for direction, pray
that you will only choose goals that are His goals for you.
You can gain more help in the goal-identification process
by considering what Jesus did to see how similar
potential goals are to following His actions. If
accomplishing a potential goal looks like something that
Jesus didn’t do and probably wouldn’t have done, that’s
also a good indication that you are looking in the wrong
direction.

When you think about having achieved a potential goal,
test also for whether you feel at peace. Fulfilling His
purposes is satisfying while accomplishing goals that
aren’t good for you usually creates dissatisfaction and
internal strife.

In addition, probe your heart to see if there are other,
unexpected goal areas that appeal to you. You may not
understand what the calling is at first. That’s all right.
Just keep praying and asking for guidance about what
the attraction means, and you will eventually receive
your answer.

Consider the Spiritual Effects of Potential Goals

Coming to Him as to a living stone,
rejected indeed by men,
but chosen by God and precious,
you also, as living stones,
are being built up a spiritual house,
a holy priesthood,
to offer up spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

— 1 Peter 2:4-5 (NKJV)

It’s possible to come close to choosing a Godly goal for
following Him and still miss the mark. Let’s say that you
feel called by your heart to help orphans. You might be
considering a potential goal that involves helping an
orphan who is a distant relative. However, God might
instead intend for you to help establish a new Christian
orphanage in a country where there are lots of orphans
and few Christians.

By considering the likely spiritual effects of a potential
goal, you should move closer to appreciating the Lord’s
intentions for you. Let’s apply that test to this example:
If the individual orphan is already living in a good
Christian home and receiving regular contacts with
other Christians, your potential goal might have no
apparent spiritual effect. Realizing that, you might then
think about how helping orphans could serve Godly
spiritual purposes. That thought might lead you to
consider the spiritual needs of unsaved orphans and
where your help could do the most to help make it
possible for them to gain Salvation. Prayer, Bible study,
and the Holy Spirit will eventually draw you toward
God’s intent.

Imagine the Worst Results That Could Occur
from Accomplishing the Goals You Are Considering

Then it will be that he who flees the report of disaster
will fall into the pit, ….

— Isaiah 24:18 (NAS)

Life is full of unintended consequences. It’s no problem
when unexpected blessings occur, but it would certainly
be nice to avoid unexpected problems and setbacks.
While only God knows the traps and disasters that wait
from following certain goals, you can avoid at least some
of those pitfalls by thinking about what could go wrong
before choosing a goal.

Let’s look at the goal for having a nicer home as an
example. You may be thinking that there isn’t much that
could go wrong with such a goal. In looking at the worst
results that could follow from accomplishing that goal,
please realize that I have nothing against people living in
nicer homes. In fact, such a goal can be a Godly one when
it furthers important spiritual purposes such as by
providing a location for starting a home church.

Unless you have a rich Aunt Tilly who wants to give you a
nicer home, you will probably have to earn more money
before you can move up. If your current job won’t provide
enough to make that possible, you will be looking for a new
position that pays better. Can you find such a new job that
allows you and your family to attend the same church, to
stay in the same community, to keep the same friends,
to have a shorter commute, and to spend more time with
one another? If you can’t find such a new position, then you
will disrupt many good things while seeking the single
dimension of nicer physical surroundings.

Now, imagine that you are in the nicer home. Will such a
home improve your life and that of your family … or
simply make you feel proud of yourself? For instance,
many “nicer” homes are simply bigger homes, with more
and larger rooms. If you aren’t careful, such a home can
isolate family members from one another.

Look, too, at the long-term impacts on your children. Will
they now feel that they have “failed” in life unless they can
afford such a nice home when they are adults? If so, you
may be drawing them away from living lives pleasing to
God that won’t provide enough income to pay for such
homes.

Next, consider how reliable your income will be over the
years it will take to pay off your mortgage. How will you
feel if your career doesn’t go well and you have to sell
your “nicer” home during a time when house prices are
falling? You may lose a fortune in the process, making you
financially less secure. In addition, losing the nicer home
may mean disrupting the lives of family and friends all
over again for no positive purpose.

What can be learned from this investigation? If you decide
that you want a nicer home as a goal, you should define the
goal in such a way that you and those you care about will
experience an increase in spiritual and practical benefits no
matter what else happens after you move. As a
consequence, you’ll probably take longer to make the
change and carefully consider the pros and cons of any
change in housing before acting. That’s all to the good.

Through prayer, Bible study, listening to the Holy Spirit,
modeling what Jesus did, consulting with those who will
be affected by your decisions, testing for spiritual effects,
considering the risks of what you are thinking about, and
paying attention to your heart’s reactions to potential
goals, you can firmly set your feet onto the spiritual
pathway that God has planned out for you. When you
start to follow His will toward these goals, you will enjoy
that peace which He provides that is beyond all
understanding. God will bountifully bless you when you
uprightly follow the path He has planned for you.

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell, All Rights Reserved.