YOU MUST HAVE THESE!!!
Proverbs 29:18 NASB
Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained. But happy is he who keeps the law.
In order to succeed in your life you must have goals. This truth, this profound insight to life laid out in Scripture, has been absolutely essential to the last 50 years of my life. Without goals you’ll live a foolish, unfulfilling, unrestrained life. You’ll seldom experience real happiness or genuine satisfaction in your life. You will end up with a squandered, wasted life.
Let me give you a simple illustration of the power of a goal. Many of you reading this went to a college or university of some kind. You had a goal/vision to get prepared vocationally for your future, by getting a degree in some particular field. You enrolled in a college, but then this is what happened. They planned out your objectives and supporting activities. They made demands of you, so you would achieve your vocational goal. You can call it a curriculum, but it is exactly what I have described. Stated objectives, supporting activities and a way to gauge your progress, in order to achieve your goal.
Here is the powerful lesson most people miss their entire life. As an adult, you must decide your goals, you must create your own objectives, supporting activities, and gauge your own progress. You must make demands of yourself! If you don’t, you will absolutely fail at life. You will fail. It is impossible to succeed if you don’t have specific goals that guide your every decision, shape your choices, and become laws that direct your steps towards positive accomplishments. I call this living strategically. As Proverbs 14:15 states emphatically–The prudent man considers his steps!
Every one of my goals in life have been shaped, informed, and influenced by God’s commands, God’s wisdom principles or God’s precepts. This is true of my life, my ministry, my parenting, my finances, my marital life, my spiritual life and my health. Everything. These personal goals, based on the Word of God, have been like laws and directives guiding my steps, decisions and actions.
Here are a few examples:
As a young man I desperately wanted God to use me. I was not a very disciplined young man. I sort of did what I felt like doing or not doing. As I read my Bible, I realized that in order for God to use me, I had to train myself to be godly. I had to do hard things that didn’t “feel” good. I had to develop meaningful, spiritual disciplines in my life. So I made a goal to read my Bible every day. I picked out a place to go to read it. I spent a good portion of time reading it, and underlining things I read. I was very strategic, specific and intentional.
Reading came easier to me than prayer. Prayer just seemed to be difficult. It required time alone, concentration of the mind and spirit, and frankly, other spiritual things, like fellowship and singing were more fun. I knew God could not use me if I was not a man of great prayer. So I made a goal. I bought a watch with a timer on it. I found a private place out in nature, and desiring to stay alert, and stay fit, I began my prayer walks. My goal was to eventually pray for an hour a day, walking at least 3 miles. Using my watch timer, I started with 10 minutes, eventually raised it to 20 minutes, then 30, then 45 and finally 60 minutes. I have been doing my hour prayer walks now for decades. In fact, I can’t function without them now. Whether I am sick or have back pain, or am traveling, I always do my 60 minute prayer walk, even if it has to be slowly because of illness. My prayer walks are filled with thanksgiving, fervent requests, burden casting, intercessions and praise. All you see, shaped and informed by Scripture.
I set financial goals. I made a budget to reflect those goals. I was determined to be a wise, faithful steward of all God gave me. I made strategic decisions in order to achieve those goals. I made sure they were realistic and attainable. I am still striving to this very day to see some of my goals achieved. But as I write this, many have been. I can tell you as an older man, it is essential you set clear financial goals now, before it’s too late and time and money have passed you by.
I had a goal, a vision as a young man, to serve the Lord and do his work until God takes me home. This is a lifelong goal. I had and have no desire to retire. I had a specific plan to live this out, but that plan had to be altered due to circumstances beyond my control. With the same goal–to serve the Lord and his people for the rest of my life, I formulated a new plan to live that out. Strong Disciple was born as a result.
This may seem trivial to you, but I have a goal to maintain and sustain good health. To stay fit and active in age appropriate ways. To avoid as many medical bills as possible. I do everything possible to avoid the deadly, destructive American diet. When I bought this house in 2000, I bought a house with a lot of stairs. This house has 4 levels. Over the last 24 years living here, I have walked up and down over half a million stairs. You see, I was determined to live strategically. These stairs are just a natural part of my day, every day. Years ago, I made a simple goal to do a specific number of pushups each day. I keep the pushup bars right in my office. As a result, keeping track of my progress, I have now done 730,000 of them. Anyone could do this, but you must set a goal. Then let that goal be your law, doing what needs to be done to achieve that goal, each and every day.
Almost all of my goals I track, recording the progress or the number of where I am at every day. I know where my finances are every day. I know all my Strong Disciple ministry data every day. I keep track of my weight every day. I write all of these things down.
I made strategic goals for my parenting. These goals shaped everything Kathy and I did with our children as they grew up. Choices we made, actions we took, and things we avoided. They were extremely impactful in each of our children’s lives. If you are interested in knowing more about them, and want to use the little booklet I created for you to craft your own plan, you can find them all here. Thousands have found this series and booklet to be incredibly helpful to their own parenting journey.
https://strongdisciple.com/
https://strongdisciple.com/wp-
One other essential ingredient for the fulfillment of my goals is PRAYER. I regularly pray over each of my goals, asking for God’s supernatural help in bringing them about. God has faithfully helped me in so many over the years. God will help you as well and answer your prayers.
You will find this message a great help in these matters. Please take time to listen.
https://strongdisciple.com/
Helping you become a Strong Disciple,
Because of Jesus,
Pastor Mark Darling
