Each year, our pastor preaches a sermon about setting ‘noble goals’.
Don’t get me wrong, it is a good sermon. He changes it up a bit each year, but the general thrust of it is that we should set godly goals so that we can please God and grow in spiritual maturity. Through such goals we can also discover what God wants us to do, and build our faith as He empowers us to accomplish them.
Even when I start out the service with a firm determination not to make any goals, by the end of the sermon, I’m convinced that I should rush out and write down a list of goals immediately. To add insult to injury, this year our pastor set aside a full minute at the end of the service so we could start to write goals on our bulletins. Then he stood up front and watched us, to make sure we were writing.
I should note, our family sits in the third row.
I, of course, am an Olympic-class procrastinator, and so I take it as a bit of a challenge, when Pastor Jim throws down the ‘goal gauntlet’. This year I am hoping to make it well into February without setting any kind of goals, but the pressure is definitely mounting.
David and Sarah, goal-setters extraordinaire.
Some years, I have an easy-out — I tell myself that I will write my goals when I go to the Great Commission Conference at Jefferson Baptist Church (which falls later in January). That buys me a few weeks, but exposes me to another of these disciplined, meddlesome, goal-setting pastors, so it is a mixed blessing.
But this year I’m not going to Oregon for the conference, so that excuse is out.
Another favorite reason to hold off on goal setting is to suddenly have no access to paper, writing implements and/or computers. As Pastor Jim says, “A goal is not a goal unless it is written down.” But that alibi is a little far-fetched, especially when I am writing this blog, and clearly have access to a computer, not to mention smart phones which abound. So much for that alibi, unless I want to break both my wrists in the next few days.
As a parent, I do have an obligation to avoid placing stumbling blocks in front of my children, so I don’t want to be too overt or successful in writing down a long list of impressive-sounding goals. This might kill my kids’ joy and make them unwilling to ‘own’ their responsibility to set goals. So I could put off writing my own goals out of a high-sounding desire to leave room for my children to make goals without being overshadowed by my ‘ultra-maturity’ and ‘hyper-spirituality’. Yes! This sounds like a good pretext for my list!
Big sister leads the way!
But on the first of January, Rachel corralled her sister Sarah and two hapless friends who had spent the night, and sat them down at the kitchen table with pen and paper. “Write your goals,” she told them firmly. Then she glared at them sternly until they all had produced a list of goals. So much for not being a stumbling block for my children — I’m four days behind already!
I seem to be running out of rationalizations. Perhaps I’ll come up with a draft list of goals, but somehow never quite finalize it. (This is actually my most effective strategy, since a goal without accountability is actually better than no goal at all, from the perspective of a master-procrastinator).
Truth be told, all this talk about goals has me exhausted — I’d better quit. Maybe I’ll come back and finish this another day.
Tim
