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.

One of my conclusions after raising 8 kids and having grandkids around all the time and seeing lots of kids in church is that every person is born lazy. If I would think, study, and read about what is the most predominate tendencies of our flesh I think I would say laziness. I believe Solomn came to that same conclusion as he writes the book of Proverbs to his son on how to live successfully and repeatedly encourages diligence and warns against being a sloth. As almost all character does diligence starts in our mind with right thinking. Growing up on a dairy farm I was blessed with a Dad who taught us kids how to work hard and more importantly,to enjoy working hard. Now, I have some self-talk rituals that I constantly use to keep the joy of working hard strong in my life. Each morning as I write my to-do list for the day I ask God for guidance, strength, and motivation and thank Him for giving me significant things to do with my life and not putting me on the bench. In the evening before going to sleep I again thank the Lord for the day and what I was able to accomplish for Him and then I ask Him if He would give me a little bit more to do tomorrow than I had today. In the evening I usually pray a short prayer before closing my eyes, “Lord, I want to be able to say what You did just before You were crucified when You declared that You had accomplished all the work the Father had given to You to do”. There is only one thing more enjoyable than working really hard all day long and that is Fishing. When I had been pastoring for just a couple of years I went to an event in Portland for Pastors and their wives where Chuck Swindoll was speaking. He said that the greatest occupational hazard for pastors was sloth. He listed half a dozen reasons why none of which I remember, but I do remember making a commitment to the Lord that I would work as hard as a pastor as I did as a dairy farmer. Proverbs 23:7, In all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.

The basic message of the book of Proverbs in the Bible is that if you seek for wisdom like silver, or gold, or precious treasure than you will get it. One of the things my Dad used to say often was ” just because you get older doesn’t mean you are necessarily wiser, there are a lot of old fools.” We must seek wisdom diligently, constantly or we will wake up some day and realize that we are an old fool. Wisdom is knowing what to say and what to do in any situation that we find ourselves in. As a pastor who counsels others often I want to have wisdom, as a Dad and grandfather and husband I always want to do and say the right thing. The most important source of wisdom for me over the years is counsel from others. Shortly after the first of our eight kids was born we would meet weekly with a Dad of 12 kids who were the best behaved and smartest most talented kids I had ever seen. When I started pastoring I was so dumb but I knew some very wise and experienced pastors who were willing to meet with me at least monthly and let me ask lots of questions. I have an ongoing goal of reading 100 pages in good books each week to learn and to acquire knowledge, and wisdom. I also listen to good preachers each week. With smart phones and pod casts this is so easy and convient. I ride my stationary bike an hour each day and I read while I ride and listen to the best preachers in the world. It is easy to acquire wisdom and then forget it so I do a lot of writing attempting to put into words on paper what I have learned. Thinking through situations and what I should have said or done and writing it down is a great way to write your own book of Proverbs for life. Psalms 119:97-100 says that reading the Bible will give me more wisdom than the aged or my teachers or even than my enemies. And James 1 promises that If I ask God He will give me wisdom. He won’t give to those who are naive or lazy but God does give wisdom to those who seek it diligently as if their life depends on it.

Of the 12 personal “Purpose Statements” that I wrote, wrote about, read often and meditate on, this one #8, “Be Strong”, has had the greatest impact on my life. In Joshua 1:9 Moses says to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous” and in 2 Timothy 2:1, Paul tells Timothy “Be strong”. This command is not talking about physical strength but an inner strength to deal with anything in life and to carry a heavy load of responsibility. It is all about how we think when pressures mount, crisis comes, and major obstacles come into our life that have to be fixed or solved. As I talk to young pastors I often say that their inner strength determines the maximum size of their ministries. I have 5 rules that I follow to “Be strong”. The first is “Never talk tired or stressed”. People often say, “I am so tired”, or “I am so stressed out”, or “I am so busy” or “it is so hard”. I work at not saying things like that because it only makes it worse and it is not what strong people say. Second, “Don’t grumble or complain about anything”. If I am going to be strong, I need to act like a strong person and strong people don’t whine. Third, ” don’t think weak, negative, self pity, or anxious thoughts”. I control my thinking by replacing weak thinking with Bible verses that I have memorized and begin to meditate on them. This requires the daily discipline of memorizing Bible verses and reviewing them.I practice this with immoral thinking, angry thinking, prideful thinking, bitter thinking as well. Forth, I ask God to fill me with the Holy Spirit and give me His strength whenever I am feeling tired, discouraged, depressed, or unmotivated. Fifth, I spend time every day “waiting on the Lord” reading the Bible, praying, journaling, reflecting and listening to my thoughts. Isaiah 40 says that those who wait on the Lord will “be renewed in their strength”. An additional key principle is to “Rest systematically”. Rest for me is not only sleeping but doing things that I enjoy and are challenging in a fun way. I would like to say at 85 years of age what Caleb said at that age, “I am as strong today as I was when I started on this journey” about 40 years earlier. I will do my part.