goals – Transformed ♥ Heart

“Without a vision” sometimes has been understood to mean that if you don’t have direction or goals in life, your life lacks meaning. A lack of meaning and real purpose can make a person feel so empty that they think life isn’t worth living. The lack of vision or purpose, combined with the theory of evolution that seems to be pushed in educational institutions these days, makes one wonder about the meaning of their existence. Questions like “Who am I? Where am I going? & What is my purpose? are commonly asked, but often poorly answered.

Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl, was required reading when I was in college. I will simply summarize what I remember about the book. During the Holocaust,
Victor Frankl discovered that people who focused on purpose during their time in a concentration camp seemed to be the ones who survived. Anne Frank’s father is a good example of this. I read that he survived the camp by telling himself that he had to stay alive to find his family after the war.

Having a reason to live is something we all want. The increased number of suicides in recent years should make us realize that finding purpose is very important. It’s a good idea to set goals for yourself in this, and even for your family as a whole. Each member of the family can set specific goals for themselves, too. Everyone can set goals in the following areas of their life: Spiritual growth goals (growing in the Lord is most important), physical, intellectual, and even social ones. Each person needs someone who will help keep them accountable to these goals. You don’t want just another failed “New Year’s” resolution.

Then, you also need to ask God what specific purposes He has for your life. Ephesians 2:10 tells us that we are His workmanship created for good works in Christ, and 2 Timothy 1:9 also tells us that God has saved us and called us with a holy calling according to His own purpose. The closer our walk with Him, the more apt we are to hear and discern what that purpose is. There are so many voices competing for our attention. They often drown out the “still small voice of God”. To hear his voice more clearly, step away from your busy-ness, disconnect or turn off the noise around you, and quiet your heart before Him. Then perhaps when He does speak, you will recognize His voice and be able to respond like Samuel did, “Speak, for your servant hears”.

Now, it’s very important to see the actual meaning of that verse as it was written in Hebrew. KJV-Proverbs 29:18 says, “Without a vision, the people perish: but he that keeps the law, happy is he”. In the NIV and NKJV, it is translated, “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.”

In the New Defender’s Bible, Henry Morris tells us that the word “vision” here does not refer to farsighted imagination, but to actual divine revelation, and the word “perish” means “open” or “exposed”. When people today reject or ignore the revealed Word of God, they are open and helpless to resist the humanistic and occultic doctrines.

I Samuel 3:1 says, “Now the boy Samuel ministered to the Lord before Eli. And the word of the Lord was precious (rare) in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” The fact that there was no open vision and the word of the Lord was precious indicates that God had not given any direct revelation to His people, as He had in former times.

Psalm 74:9 says “We do not see signs; there is no longer any prophet; Nor is there any among us who knows how long.”

Ezekiel 7:26-”Disaster will come upon disaster, and rumor will be upon rumor. Then they will seek a vision from a prophet; but the law will perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.”

Thankfully, we have God’s completed revelation in the Bible, both the Old and New Testament. Since the Word of God is without error, if we believe that God is speaking to us about something, we should diligently search the Scriptures to make sure that it is in agreement with God’s Word.

Do you have 2020 vision?

I have had a couple different blogs about reflections recently. This time, I’m going a different direction with the word reflection. For some of you, a mirror may come to your mind when I say the word, and you may not like what you see in a mirror. Perhaps, it’s your physical appearance–too tall, too short, too fat, too skinny, too light, too dark, too many wrinkles, too bald, etc., or it may be a character flaw (what you know is on the inside) that you don’t like. It may be that you have an anger problem, or that you are too impatient, too hypocritical (or perhaps the opposite), too lazy (or just a lack of self-discipline to get necessary things done), too dishonest, too proud, too negative, or too much of a worrier. We’ll look at both kinds in this blog.

The first physical characteristic that I notice about myself when I look in the mirror these days is that my weight has been redistributed in my body. I’m still not very heavy (even close to the the same weight as I was in high school many years ago), but somehow it seems that my top keeps dropping to my bottom and thighs a little bit more each decade. And now, during this Covid-19 period of social distancing and quarantining, I have found that I have “bad hair” days frequently. I need a hair cut so badly to reshape what used to be a short style haircut.

Then, recently I have also seen someone in the mirror who has made too many excuses for my character flaws due to being raised (or in many ways, raising myself) in a very dysfunctional, single-parent home in the 60’s and 70’s. I don’t particularly like either of those reflections that I have been seeing. Well, should I just fret about the things that I don’t like about myself, or do something to try and change those things?

I believe that if you really want to change negative things about yourself and become more disciplined and Christ-like, God will help you. Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”; Matthew 19:26 says that “with God all things are possible”; Matthew 7:7 says, “ask, and it shall be given unto you”; and Romans 7:24 reminds of how wretched we are in ourselves, but verse 25 says that victory comes through Jesus Christ our Lord. So, to change those things that you don’t like about yourself, start by talking to God about them, and ask Him to help you change them. Then, set goals, make a realistic schedule, find someone who will help keep you accountable, and finally, thank God for what He is going to do in and through you. Don’t let the enemy discourage you (or even make a monkey out of you). Although God sometimes does things supernaturally, He often uses the natural ways to teach and grow us, so it often takes time to get rid of those bad habits and to develop good habits for Him.

My plan of action is to get up a little earlier to start each morning with a longer quiet time praying and reading the Bible (Romans 10:17 says “faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God”), schedule in at least 2 forms of exercise daily (probably an aerobic and an anaerobic form), ask a family member to help keep me accountable, and to turn off (or walk away from) anything that distracts me from my goals. Then, of course, I’m going to thank and praise God for what He is doing in me.