I filleted almost 300 tilapia yesterday and they are now in the freezer awaiting being eaten. I am now officially out of the aquaponics business, no more fish. I decided that I couldn’t leave on a two month bicycle trip with my wife or daughter responsible for taking care of a program that they didn’t know anything about. So instead of waiting another 6 weeks just before I left I decided to just do it now. New Year, new goals, new projects, new ideas, and new dreams. I have had fun learning all about raising tilapia and aquaponics, but I have been getting a bit bored now that it was just a routine and quite a bit of work. When I get back from our 4,000 mile bicycle trip my new project is to build a three wheeled hybrid car. I have the detailed plans and it should be a major challenge and require a considerable amount of study and learning of new skills. The biggest challenge now is selling all the fish stuff on Craig’s list. For those of you who wanted a tour of my aquaponics system, sorry 😀 I will give you a ride in my car when I get it done.

If we have worked at it and have become skilled at making goals for our own life that fit and help us to prioritize our time and energy, and to motivate ourselves to be high producers in life, and to be those who are growing and changing in character steadily we can use the skill of goal setting to help others to conquer bad habits, to be high achievers, and to grow as people. When a friend, or family member or work associate tells us their troubles or problems, most of us just give some good advice. Good advice makes us and them feel good but nothing will usually change. What works effectively is if we help them set a goal that will move them to success to fixing or overcoming the situation they are in. If a friend says, “my marriage isn’t going very well right now”. You could give some marriage advice or counselimg which he probably won’t remember and it is even less likely that he will do it. A better response would be, ” Hey, I have a set of 6 DVDs on how to improve your marriage. I listened to them a couple years ago, and boy did they help make a huge difference in our marriage. How about you listen to one each week and we can get together for coffee each week and talk about how to put what you learned into practice.” If you are working on you aggressively it is amazing how many opportunities will open up to you and the wisdom you will have to help. When you are leading yourself effectively you can then lead others effectively.

In the past I have built a number of different things. My recumbent trike was a fun build, a number of boats were great fun, rebuilding my 1949 Ford pickup was one the most challenging projects. On all of these projects there were regular inspections of progress and quality. As a result of the inspections adjustments and fixes would result. One of the most powerful uses of goals is to use it as a tool for accelerated character growth. I can make a goal to learn something new, like painting my pickup, and I can make a goal to grow, improve, and change my character and behavior. This requires self-examination and reflection. Accurately coming to conclusions on bad habits, and character flaws is not easy because we are so hard wired towards self-protection, and we are blind and self deceived about our true self. What works for me is to take an admonition in the Bible and work on that one thing for awhile. In 2 Timothy the Apostle Paul told his young protégé that “the Lord’s bond servant must not be argumentative”. So I began listening to myself in conversations and sure enough it didn’t take me long to come to the conclusion that I liked being right and I was quick to argue my view point as being best. As I reflected and journaled about it I became quite disgusted with my childish behavior and wrote a goal to change. Character goals take some thought so that they are measurable and usually require the input of another person, or it can be like having a goal to lose weight, but having your eyes closed when you stand on the scales. I usually have one character goal going all the time, and I change them every 3 to 4 months. Some good behavior or character goals to start on is anger, gossip, slander, grumbling, bitterness, gentleness etc. I always find a number of Bible verses that deal with the flaw I am working on and meditate on them often as part of the goal. Most people grow very little in character unless forced to by life. We can all grow rapidly by using goals.

One of the challenges that I have is sorting out all the ideas, dreams, and compulsions that are constantly popping into my mind to try and determine which ones are from God. The first step for me is to wait until I “fall in love” with a particular idea. It starts popping into my mind with greater frequency and I start day dreaming about it. The second step is I write the dream down with as much detail as I can and then I put it away for one month. If I start to think about it I treat the thought like I would an immoral, covetous, or bitter thought, I replace it with a scripture verse that I have memorized. After one month I get it out and read it. In about 90% of the times I do this, when I read it my impression is negative. Words like stupid, waste of time, crazy, come to mind, so I just forget it. But occasionally when I get it out and read it my first impression is “Wow”, “let’s do it”. I then begin to write a lot, plan, set steps of action and then write a goal. Most of the time the new dream will require a lot of research which is probably my favorite part of any new venture. I enjoy learning new stuff and when it is attached to a new and exciting dream I get extra motivated to read, look for information on the Internet, go to seminars, and talk to people who have some experience. Way back in 1987 I had a thought that kept popping into my mind of planting a daughter church. It was crazy because we were still a small church with lots of problems. I wrote out as much as I could come up with which wasn’t much because I really had no clue how to do this. I went to a seminar in Southern California that Peter Wagner taught on church planting and bought a couple of books. This particular idea was so crazy and scary that I worked on it for several years before I told anybody about it. In 1990 I had it all worked out, put it in writing and began sharing it with those that would need to agree to it and help if it were to happen. The projected date for the first of 10 daughter churches was Easter of 2000, 10 years away, with another following every 2 years. That is pretty close to what has happened.

Because we are created in the image and likeness of God everything we do without exception is in pursuit of a goal. We are controlled by what we want to happen in the future, the desires of our heart, whether that be an hour from now or 20 years. The problem is that because we don’t identify what our goals are and write them down they change all the time so we live our life in a squigly line at best and a circle at worst. A second problem with not identifying our goals and writing them down is we tend to pursue goals that others have set for us, and our motivation level is barely strong enough to get ourselves out of bed. If I want to live my life with focused purpose, in a straight line, highly motivatevd then I need to take time and identify what the desires of my heart are that are truly noble, write them down clear, measurable, achievable and a bit beyond where I presently am living. Once I have my goals written down I need to commit to reading them every day. It only takes a few minutes to read my goals every day, but that discipline will increase the probability of accomplishing them a billion times! ( That is not scientific but it is close). The whole goal setting, goal pursuing, goal accomplishing process is really very simple to understand and easy to do, but still most don’t. That is a mystery to me.

Because I teach so much about goals I get a ton of push back from Christians who say things like goals are secular, it is what the world does, goals are fleshly, we are attempting to succeed without God or the power of the Holy Spirit, goals promote pride in our accomplishments, and on the list of reasons go why we shouldn’t do goals. Let me suggest some reasons why being goal focused is very Biblical. First it appears to me from reading the Bible that God is goal oriented. Psalms 33:11 says, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
The plans of His heart from generation to generation.” There are many other verses like that, but I am sure we would all agree that God Almighty is not impulsive, or needs to wait to see how things work out before He plans the future. God is all sovereign and amoung other things that means that He is in control of the future. We are created in the image of God and we function best when we function like God at least to the extent that we can. When I write a goal I work hard to decern what God’s will is, so my goal is a “Statement of a commitment to obey God”, and as such would bring His power into my life. “God’s power flows to commitment to obey Him”. As I present my goals to God I say, “Lord, this is what I believe is Your will for my life, but as I pursue it I will be flexible to change it as I would decern Your will”. God gives a bit of His sovereignty to us, and if we prove to be good stewards of that sovereignty, He will give us more. That sovereignty allows us to influence people and to make a difference in the world around us, it is the authority of Christ. The best tool I know of to be a good steward of this “authority” is goal setting.

It is the 30th of December and you ought to have your goals done by now for 2016. I read an article on goal setting recently and the writer of the article said that only 2% of the adult population of the United States has written goals. That is very sad to me because goal setting is probably the best tool we have to motivate ourselves beyond mediocrity in life. I would no more try to live life successfully without goals than I would to try and manage my money without some kind of record system. A person with an income of $500 a month and few bills could possibly operate out of his head financially. A key word in our living for God is stewardship. Everything belongs to Him and He entrusts us with time, money, opportunities, spiritual gifts, children, ministries and if we steward well for Him what He has given us He will entrust us with more. If we are a poor steward with what we have been given He will not give us more and He will take back what He has already given to us and give it to someone who is being a faithful steward. When I think about why most do not set specific, measurable goals that are written down I have come to the conclusion it is because of the fear of failing. Once a goal is set and written down we have defined success for ourselves and we would just as soon stay average than feel bad for not accomplishing a goal. The key is to make them achievable but a little bit beyond what we have previously done. Be flexible, and don’t assume your goals are the Ten Commandments. If they are to difficult change them. When a person first starts with the discipline and skill of being goal oriented it is enough to just learn the mechanics of it and to do the basics of pursuing goals successfully. Once the routine and the knowledge of how to use goals successfully in our life is achieved the difficulty level can be raised gradually until you are a very productive person. Don’t wait another year.

Patty and I left our house at 6 am this morning and drove 3 1/2 hours to our daughter Hannah”s house in South West Washington. Her husband Kyle is a youth pastor there in the small town of Naselle. We were headed for our second Christmas with them bringing gifts for our three sweet, highly intelligent, very well behaved though super hyper, incredibly talented, grandchildren, Jackson, Blakely, and Henry, 4,3 and 1 years of age. Patty drove all the way up and I slept very soundly all the way there, and I drove home while she slept. Though we were there only 8 hours it was a very enjoyable day. The grandkids ran around showing off for grandma and grandpa and I clapped and cheered egging them on. Proverbs 17:6 says, “Grandchildren are the crown of old men”, and that certainly is true for me, all 22 of them. In my prayer journal each one of them has a page and after a day like today I like to write a bit about each one of them that helps keep me mentally and emotionally connected so that I pray for them each day with more fervency.

These statements are what’s most important to me, and by writing them down and reading them several times a week it helps me to think and reflect on whether I am being successful in living these values or not. You could write your own. I have 12 but you could have 6 or 20. Here is my list again; (1) Love God, (2) love Patty, (3) love people, (4) raise champions, (5) Make disciples, (6) keep it simple, (7) train well, (8) be strong, (9) be wise, (10) work hard, (11) be a witness, (12) finish strong. These are not goals, but most of my goals are set with these values in mind.

Well, I have 12 personal purpose statements and this is the last one. It is #11 on the list but I started with #12 and moved to #1. “Be a Witness” is not a pastor thing for me, it is a personal responsibility given to me as an adopted child of God. Every Christian who has been given the free gift of eternal life with God has been given this responsibility. Most believers are very irresponsible when it comes to being faithful to this calling given to us by Jesus. I want to be faithful and responsible to God, but I don’t want to be obnoxious and offensive to people so I have come up with a personal stategy to be an effective witness of the gospel. The first part of my plan is to identify people in my life who don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, put their name in my prayer journal and pray for them every day. This doesn’t take more than 5 minutes each day to do and I believe it moves God to work in their life and in mine. In their life God convicts, draws, frees from demonic blindness and controls, and enlightens. In my life He gives wisdom, boldness, and opportunities. The next part of my plan is to look for opportunities to hang out and visit a bit with them to get to know them and then if possible to do something social with them that is fun such as a meal together, cards, golf, bowling, fishing or whatever works. During these hang out, chit chat times I listen for a need that they share about that I could do something about. It can be as simple as loaning a tool to or helping with a project. The next step is very powerful, I listen for a need, worry, or trial that I can offer to pray for. I will pray out loud with them putting my hand on their shoulder if it seems like they would be comfortable with that. I put the need in my prayer journal and pray for it faithfully every day. Another key part of my plan Is to identify with Christ, my church, the Bible as often as I can in a natural, gracious way that is not preachy, just telling my personal story. At some point I will invite them to church, give them a CD of a Billy Graham presentation, give them a book or whatever seems appropriate. When it seems like the time is right I share the gospel and ask them if they would like to be part of Gods family.