Goal Setting with Grace

I want to start off our chat on goals in a rather counterintuitive way. I mean, goal setting in January is so traditional it borders cliché, but I want to encourage you to do it a little differently this year.

I find reflecting, reimagining, and goal setting gives me hope for the time ahead. But, I experience a twinge of guilt every time I make my “new” list of goals, because some of them aren’t really all that new. You know the ones: eat less sugar, less eating out, exercise more, create more, etc. I just realize I didn’t exactly honor them how I envisioned the year before.

I want to encourage you if you ever encounter similar guilt with unchecked boxes. I invite you to pause and reflect with grace. What did you do in the previous year that you hadn’t planned to or that you did more than you even expected to? It doesn’t have to be revolutionary or life-changing to matter. The extraordinary is found in our ordinary moments. We can be extraordinary in our ordinary lives. Maybe you responded a little more gently to those around you (even when you didn’t want to), or you let go of things a younger you wouldn’t have. Victory isn’t always showcased at a finish line or with an award.

If you are still here, you are still growing. The beauty of it is that even in our mess, unchecked goals and all, God gives us grace and calls us his handiwork–his masterpieces (Ephesians 3:20). Give yourself grace. Those places of yourself that are still God’s work-in-progress, know that he is faithful to complete the good work he began in you (Philippians 1:6).

We can’t always measure our growth like completed levels in a video game. You can’t exactly keep track of every time you did the right thing even when it was hard. That’s growth nonetheless. You can’t keep track of the times you wrapped your arms around a loved one or encouraged someone who needed it. You can’t keep track of the times you stepped beyond your comfort zone to serve someone with an act of kindness. There is beauty in checking the boxes that really matter, the ones we didn’t even think to write down. There is something victorious about every time you chose to show love and light into this world.

As we go into this next year, I can and will make plans and goals. But I do one thing differently before I do; I pray. For his thoughts are higher than my thoughts and his ways are higher than my ways. “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)

I will most definitely be buying less sugary foods, be more conscious to get up and get moving every single day, and take more quiet time each day to reset and refuel. After all, the apostle Paul did say our bodies are a temple with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, so shouldn’t I treat it with a little more care and respect? More temple less trash-compactor? In those goals I pray for self-control. I pray for wisdom remembering, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him” (James 1:5). God gave me one body and I am going to stop looking at it with discontent and start taking better care of it.

Then there are those personal aspirations I thought I would have reached by now, maybe you have some, too. I could easily list two dozens things I would like to see accomplished this year (finally.) But again, give grace and trust. Before I make my list, I will pray, “Not my will, but yours, God.” His timing doesn’t always look like my timing and I am thankful for that when I realize why. But, in the moments when I wonder why something hasn’t come to pass yet, I’ll remember his plans for me are for my good and his glory. His plans aren’t to harm me, but to give me hope and a future. That he can do immeasurably more than I could ever ask or imagine. Those truths make it so much easier to lay it all down and surrender it at the foot of the throne. He has gone before you and I this year, nothing is delayed or surprising him. He knows, and I can trust what he has prepared for me because he calls me his child and he is a good father.

I remember the words of Isaiah, “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:18-20)

Pray. Surrender. Trust. Just because you haven’t arrived in that area of your life yet doesn’t mean you won’t.