Goals, Objectives, Life Purpose - When’s The Last Time You Looked At This?

So, what do I write about - and why? Well, I read the Bible cover to cover every year. And there a tons of topics in the Bible. I believe the Bible has so many lessons, topics, and keeps us grounded. So I study deeply and write of its topics.

Today, I write about goals, objectives and life’s purpose. I hope it might get you thinking. If you are bored, stuck or it’s all getting hard, maybe this will help. One more thing. A good friend who is a great writer told me to add sub-titles - so I did. = )

What Are You Actually Chasing?

What if I told you that you already have a life mission statement? You just haven’t written it down. It’s been running in the background of your calendar, your bank account, your relationships, for the last ten, twenty, thirty years. And whether you’ve ever sat down to name it or not, you’re living it out every single day.

So let me ask you something before we go any further. What are your goals for this year? Not someday. Not eventually. This year.

GOAL VS. OBJECTIVE

Here’s something I want to clear up right away, because I think it trips a lot of us up. There’s a difference between a goal and an objective, and that difference might be the reason so many of us feel stuck in the same place year after year.

An objective sounds like this: I need to quit drinking. I need to eat better. I need to spend more time with the people I claim I love. Sounds good. Sounds noble. But it has no teeth.

A goal sounds like this: I’ll quit drinking today. I’ll lose twenty pounds by October first. I’ll call my daughter tomorrow, not someday. A goal has a deadline and a plan. The deadline is what creates urgency. It’s what turns a wish into a timeline, and a timeline into purpose.

Think of it this way. An objective is a compass. It points you in a general direction, and that’s not nothing, but you can wander for years still technically “headed north” and never arrive anywhere. A goal is a GPS. It’s got a destination programmed in and an estimated time of arrival. One of them makes you feel like you’re doing something. The other one gets you there.

THE THIRTY-THOUSAND-FOOT VIEW

And here’s the question underneath all of this. What is your life’s mission? What is your purpose? Because those goals and objectives, whether you’ve written them down or not, are shaped by whatever you believe your purpose actually is.

So let’s get specific, because vague inspiration never changed anybody’s average day. What’s your health goal? What’s your goal for your marriage, your kids, your grandkids? What have you set for your friendships, the ones that used to be close and have quietly gone cold? What’s your spiritual goal? Your educational goal? Your professional goal? Is any of this written down anywhere, someplace you’d actually go back and check?

Most of us don’t do this. We just live. We chase whatever’s in front of us, the next deadline, the next distraction, the next thing demanding our attention, and we call that a life. When’s the last time you actually stepped back and looked at your life from thirty thousand feet? Not the next task. The whole flight path, looking ahead - the next year - the next decade. In the last decade or two, what’s actually changed? Where have you grown? Where have you just gotten older in the same place?

THE FRUIT TEST

Now here’s where it gets uncomfortable, and I say that with love. The writer of Galatians tells us that the fruit, singular, not fruits, of the HOLY SPIRIT is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

(Galatians 5:22-23 NCV)

That’s not a list of nine things you pick and choose from. It’s one fruit with nine flavors, all growing from the same root. So ask yourself honestly: are these showing up in your life today? Yesterday? Over the last ten years? Is there more peace in you now than there was a decade ago? More patience? Or have you just gotten better at hiding the fact that there isn’t?

Because here’s the deeper question hiding underneath all our goal-setting. Are you living for yourself and your own improvement? Or are you investing in others, worshipping GOD with your time, your energy, your money? Those are two very different mission statements, and only one of them was ever going to satisfy you.

HEALING OURSELVES WITHOUT KNOWING WE’RE BROKEN

Christian psychiatrist Dr. Curt Thompson has spent years studying how so many of us are walking around trying to heal ourselves from wounds we’ve never even named. We chase self-improvement, we chase distraction, we chase achievement, all while the actual dysfunction and insecurity underneath never gets touched, because we never slowed down long enough to look at it. That should cause every one of us to pause. How much of my goal-setting is really just me rearranging furniture in a house I’ve never actually gone into?

SOLOMON’S VERDICT

So what does GOD say about all this striving? Let’s ask a man who had more resources to chase happiness than anyone in history. Solomon had wealth beyond counting, wisdom nobody could rival, pleasure available to him at every turn. And after chasing every one of it to the end, here’s his verdict:

Everything is meaningless, completely meaningless.

(Ecclesiastes 1:2 NCV)

I devoted myself to everything my hands did and everything I worked to get, and it turned out to be like chasing the wind. Nothing was gained.

(Ecclesiastes 2:10-11 NCV, paraphrased)

The man who had everything called it chasing the wind. Let that sit for a second. He didn’t say it was hard to get. He said once you got it, it was nothing. That should reframe every goal you and I have ever chased.

But Solomon didn’t leave us there in the meaninglessness. He landed somewhere. After all that pursuit, all that pleasure, all that wisdom, here’s his final word to us:

Fear GOD and obey HIS commands, because this is what everyone should do.

(Ecclesiastes 12:13 NCV)

That’s it. That’s the conclusion of the man who had it all. Not “acquire more.” Not “achieve more.” Fear GOD, obey HIM. That’s the whole verdict from the smartest, richest, most pleasure-saturated man who ever lived.

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH WHAT’S LEFT?

Now let me be clear about something. I’m not telling you to quit your job and become a missionary. I’m not telling you that you have to stand behind a pulpit to matter to GOD. But I am telling you that life is temporary. You’ve seen it. Maybe you’ve stood at a funeral you never saw coming. Maybe you’ve held the hand of someone who thought they had another twenty years and got twenty days instead. So I have to ask you plainly: what will you do with the rest of your life?

Jesus put the whole thing in one sentence, when someone asked HIM what mattered most:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind… Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

(Matthew 22:37, 39 NCV)

That’s the mission statement. The whole law and the prophets hang on that one sentence.

WHERE WORSHIP ACTUALLY HAPPENS

So as you go about managing your job, your health, your relationships, even your chores, that’s actually where worship happens. That’s where love happens. Forgiveness. Staying in touch. Serving somebody who can’t repay you. These are the things that make a life full instead of just busy.

So if you’re bored right now. If you’re in pain. If you’re missing somebody you love, or somebody you’ve lost. Whatever your situation is today, here’s my challenge. Set a goal, not an objective, in the areas of life that actually carry meaning. Watch what happens. It is genuinely exciting to watch a life turn, even slightly, toward the things that last.

GOD, help us not to waste our time, our money, or our effort chasing only ourselves. Help us see clearly that giving, loving, and sharing are what bring fullness and meaning to a life, not accumulation, not achievement, not comfort. You are not against fun. You are not against rest or enjoyment. But LORD, help us include others in it. Help us live to love YOU, and to love the people around us, at least as much as we already love ourselves. Give us the courage to set real goals, with real deadlines, in the places that actually matter, our health, our families, our friendships, our faith. And when our time here is done, let it be said that we didn’t just chase the wind. IJNIP amen ♥️

(One of our goals is traveling and doing things we’ve never done - 6000 feet horse-ride - Wendy)