Goals should reflect his will

Exercise more. Stop smoking. Eat less. Read a book. Be kinder. Give more to charity.

You can probably guess that those vows reflect New Year’s resolutions uttered by thousands of people this time of year. Studies suggest most of those well-intentioned goals will crash on the jagged rocks of reality within three or four weeks.

Sound a little fatalistic? Perhaps. But the truth is that February always is littered with the failed resolutions of Jan. 1. Ask anyone who manages a health club!

Why? Why is it so hard to set a proper course and stick with it throughout the year?

When it comes to our spiritual goals, they often fail because we set the wrong goal in the first place. We begin with the wrong person: us. Any goal that originates with us, and not with God, is destined to fail one way or another. Is God at the center of your resolutions for the coming year?

I believe God has a specific plan or purpose for every Christian, and he desires that we understand and follow that specific plan or purpose. That won’t happen if we insist on being the stars of our own life story. That is God’s role.

Consider Jonah. God called his prophet to deliver a message of repentance to people whom Jonah hated. Jonah heard God’s direction, but instead chose his own agenda and went in precisely the opposite direction. The result was a disaster.

Many of us, like Jonah, live as if we are the stars of our own lives. We set goals for the New Year based solely on what we want, what seems right to us, what would make us feel good. Our entire outlook can be wrapped up in ourselves. We ask, “How do I feel? How do others treat me? How am I getting by materially? Are my circumstances fair?”

The Bible says God desires to be rightly acknowledged as the central focus of our lives. The most important commandment, Jesus said, is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

King Solomon chased after every goal imaginable, and found emptiness even in satisfying his every whim. We have no need to chase after self-centered goals and wonder about the outcome. Solomon already discovered the truth: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man’s all” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Life is not about us, it’s about God.

Once we’ve settled on letting our goals reflect God’s will, not merely our own, we need to ask him for direction. So often we set a course of our own choosing, and then ask God to bless it. That’s backward.

Sometimes I wish God still spoke to his people that way he did in Old Testament times. He so often spoke audibly and dramatically, with a clarity that cast out all uncertainty as to his purposes. But, you know, God still speaks to his children today. He speaks through prayer, through the Scriptures, and even through the very circumstances that he orchestrates in our lives.

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God told his people: “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3). James 1:5 tells us, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally…”

Our God desires that we know his plan and purpose for our lives. And he wants us to ask him for direction. We do that through prayer.

God will never give us direction through prayer that is not affirmed in his word. Psalm 119:105 says: “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” It makes no sense for us to be frustrated about not knowing God’s direction when we’re not spending time – a lot of time – in his word.

Remember Jonah? What we know of his life is really a case study in how God speaks to his people through circumstances. It is divine providence, not chance, that shapes us into the people God wants us to be. If we want to be in tune with God’s direction for us in the New Year, we’d better pay attention to what he is doing around us.

One more thing about this business of goal-setting: Any worthy spiritual goal will require us to live by faith, rather than depend solely on our strength and ability. God wants us to trust him. His plan and purpose for our lives involves trusting him, and him alone, for the outcome.

I pray your goals for the coming year begin with God, and require you to take new steps of faith. Those are the only resolutions worth keeping.