Praise the Lord, you and I have made it into 2024. I am glad to be alive and to know there is still a lot to reach out for and pursue in and through Him, in this walk on earth. As we reflect on the past year and look forward to this one, I hope we can identify moments and periods in time where we can really see when the hand of God moved in our lives and made a difference.
If we cannot see any, then maybe the cynicism and microwave mentality of our current culture has clouded our vision, and I invite you to try something I sort of stumbled on through the year – gratitude journaling.
It is simple and nothing to be intimidated by. You get a journal and write down as often as you can just one thing you are grateful for. It can be daily, weekly, monthly, or even as soon as something happens. You can even look back to find something you are truly grateful to God for. My own aim was to write 3 things each day, but my actual was about once a fortnight. What this did for me nevertheless is encourage me when I got weighed down in my spirit. I found hope, and the ability to be more patient and resilient in the face of daily life because I saw through what I had written that God always shows up, and is always dependable: even when that did not look like what I expected it to look like.
Secondly, my encouragement to you and me is to have a plan or a vision for the year. In Habbakuk chapter 2, the Lord instructs the prophet to write down the vision, so that He who could run would be able to do so. In Proverbs chapter 29, verse 18, we learn that without a vision, we perish, and as another translation would have it, we cast off restraint. There is wisdom in having a vision and planning for the future. And if we look at our heroes of the faith, they all had a concrete idea of who they were living for and what they wanted to achieve.
Jesus Christ knew he had come to die, and he walked as such. Paul knew his call was to spread the gospel, and he lived and made his decisions with that in mind. Abraham knew he was called to be separate from his tribe and establish a lineage of God’s people. Nehemiah wanted concretely to rebuild the broken city.
David wanted to dwell in the secret place of the Lord and please him. John G Lake ‘coveted’ the gift of healing. Reinhard Bonnke wanted to spread the gospel to Africa. The centurion, visited by Peter, we can infer, desired to see himself and his household saved. Rahab desired to be spared from destruction. We could go on, with countless faithful men and women who lived victorious lives for God.
Many more are not famous and had just as noble goals to raise godly families, to be faithful stewards at work and in their local churches, and to be upright examples and mentors to the next generation. One commonality with them all is a concrete vision or plan of where they want their lives to go. It is useful to remember that if we do not aim for anything, we will achieve it; or put in another way, a failure to plan is a plan to fail.
There are so many things that will compete for our attention and affection. Social media, organized sports, polarising politics, our work, our friends, our families, our faith, activities in the name of faith, etc. If we are not proactive about what our priorities, key goals and aims for life are, we may be more likely to miss them.
Therefore, it is prudent as the year starts to think about this year, as well as the next 5 and 10, and ask ourselves, what is the vision? What are we going to spend our energy and attention to achieve? What battles are we going to choose to fight, and which ones will we let go of? And in the grand scheme of things, is this what matters most to us? Is this what matters most to the Lord in our lives?
Before I close, I just want to highlight that if you have never set goals or plans before, this process may seem daunting and intimidating. You may not know where to start on a 10-year vision, or how to begin with goals for a year. It’s okay, because everyone, when they start, has no clue about what they are doing.
I have a few suggestions on how to begin, but I want to stress that it will be important to find time during the year to look back on the goals and reflect on where you may have set them right, and where you were wrong. Give yourself permission to be human, and to learn and grow in this process of setting and following a vision for the year, for the next 5, and for the decade or decades to come. If you continue to practice, you will get the hang of this.
Give yourself permission to be human, and to learn and grow in this process of setting and following a vision for the year, for the next 5, and for the decade or decades to come.
Here is one way you can choose to begin the process:
Imagine you have succeeded in all your craziest dreams and visions for your life 10 years from now. You have gone for all of them, and have not failed. What does your life look like? i.e.,
- Where do you live?
- Who do you live with?
- Do you have a family/children?
- What does your family life look like?
- What does your relationship with God look like?
- What do you spend your day doing?
- More specifically, What time do you wake up? What do you spend your morning on? What do you spend your afternoon on?
- Do you drive? What kind of car do you drive?
- Are you involved in your local church? How?
- Have you been formally trained for ministry?
- What does this church life look like?
- What does your circle of friends look like?
- Where are you from a physical fitness point of view?
- What impact am I making in my society?
Find a quiet space where you can write down these answers as well as more questions you can think of. Ideally, where you can write non-stop for at least 30 minutes, in your own handwriting and not using a PC. Answer truthfully, from the bottom of your heart as you write, and then ask yourself what needs to be true this year, for you to get where you want to be in the next 10. These things that need to be true then become the goals you can set for this year.
Every quarter or so, revisit your 10-year answers. Do they still resonate? Are the goals you set realistic for this year? Is there a place where you need to adjust? Modify as necessary and set up a routine or system for yourself to periodically review, reflect, and pray.
Talk to God about this vision, because if you have answered from the bottom of your heart, then what you have written down is what you truly desire from your life, and pretending otherwise or not mentioning it when you pray is not presenting your whole heart and desire to God. It is deceitful, if I am to use the correct words, and is similar to dating someone but never revealing to them what your true desire for your shared life will be. There cannot be any authenticity on both sides in such a relationship, but it will rather be governed by fear and mistrust of what the other one’s agenda is.
A common objection from us believers may read as follows: What if God’s will is different from what I have written down as my vision? Isn’t it presumptuous to write down a long-term goal for my life because I don’t know what God has in store for me? Doesn’t appreciating God mean I simply live one day at a time in gratitude and be content in all circumstances as they come through in life?
Whilst this sounds humble, this mindset is rooted in a lot of doubt and fear disguised as faith. God loves you and is omnipotent and omniscient. If you are truly and humbly honest about your desires with Him but are very wrong and misguided about where you are supposed to go, will He not be faithful to correct and guide you on where your vision ought to be?
Do we suppose His love means He will be silent and allow us to fall into a ditch? And if you are a truly humble person, will you not be glad when this course correction happens? Or maybe is the objection rooted in fear that our true heart’s desires may be different from what God wants, and we are not ready to receive the inevitable course correction if we are honest? I have written before on humility, and I hope to write more on it this year, but just as an emphasis-being afraid to be fully honest to God is not it.
Truly humility must as the Psalmist, allow us to be raw and honest before God so that He can meet us where we need Him most, and show us His salvation.
I digressed a bit, but in closing, I truly wish you all a blessed new year, and May the Lord God be with you always. May He prosper and heal you, and may he restore all that the enemy has stolen from you sevenfold. Amen.
See you in the next post! God bless you!