Goal Setting

10.31.2010

Mark 8:37 37 For what can a man give in return for his soul? ESV

Just this morning my wife and I were discussing our lives and the lives of our children and relatives. We weren’t talking about them in a bad way, being critical or judgmental; we were just thinking about the decisions we made in our younger days and perhaps the consequences of those decisions. Our conversation started on the topic of goal-setting and what it meant to us back then, and what it means to us now.

And then I read Mark 8 and Jesus asked the question, “For what can a man give in return for his soul?” Indeed.

We all are entrusted with a priceless gift – our very lives. What we do with them is mostly up to us . Sometimes things happen to us despite our best efforts; but for the most part, our time, talents and resources are ours to do with what we choose. Jesus asked another question: For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? In other words, what gain is it for us to live our lives solely for ourselves? Many of our life-decisions and goals are self-based and selfishly based.

The only answer I have this morning is this: to live the rest of my life trying to help others to come to know God and receive their life-goals from Him. I have a twelve-year old who needs guidance as he is on the threshold of his teen years. I have a nineteen-year old who needs counsel as to how to launch into adulthood. I have a twenty-year old who needs her dad’s encouragement and cheer-leading. And personally, I need to simplify my life, spending what I have left wisely as I make my way home to my Maker. The top of the corporate ladder? Nah! Unless of course, it helps me to reach my godly goal…

Father in Heaven,
You have given me my very soul and the older I get the more I realize it isn’t mine to keep; or to waste. My goal Father, is to invest what I have left into the lives of others and into Your Kingdom. I am sorry for what I have squandered and ask for Your guidance as I live out what is left – for Jesus’ sake, amen.