Your Rationale Matters
a subtle (or not) corrective for goal setting
“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”1
The societal complex of goal-setting irks me a little.
Read 50 books; exercise three times per week; lose 20 pounds; spend more time with your spouse and children; it is a never ending list.
Pursuing a tangible goal is a good thing. I feel like I am constantly urging the ministries of our church to set some meaningful goals. Why? Because goals help you know whether or not the activity you’re pursuing produces the results you’re seeking.
Somehow though, I low-key despise talking about personal goals this time of year. Something about how we pursue growth gnaws at my heart.
I wonder if in the quest for bettering ourselves we have lost the thread so to speak. We have taken for granted that activity will produce something and that if we will just simply focus in on performing the right activity, or the right kind of activity, the results we seek materialize over time.
Why do we pursue goals? Why does someone want to read 50 books in a year? What benefit does that bring? It’s one thing to know that I’m supposed to be maturing as a human being, but it is an entirely separate thing to know how to mature as a human being.
Over my lifetime, I’ve met people from various walks of life living various ways pursuing various interests with various levels of success and failure. Regardless of field, regardless of intelligence, my friends think about what they would like to achieve in the future and so they begin mapping out a path to achieve it. Nearly every path of growth enlists strategy, but few I know embrace rationale. I have long held to the idea that one must start with why.
Exercise is good for you, but how do you get started? Walking, rucking, lifting weights, CrossFit, HIIT (high-intensity interval training), and so on; the endless list of options is overwhelming to say the least. The best shape I’ve possibly been in since 1999 came through a very specific routine which alternated HIIT and resistance training three or four days per week. Alongside the exercise, I took a close look at my diet. My coach in the process stressed to me that at some point I could examine the macronutrients more closely, but he gave me a calorie goal and helped me see how I might alter what I ate in order to achieve it. I followed the routine as best as I could for months. I lost about 20 pounds and looked better than I have in years.
The transformative nature of the routine wasn’t that I stuck to it. My coach explained to me why he wanted me to work out like I did, why he wanted me to eat differently. It was less about the activity and more about the principles behind the activity.
This is the problem I have with goal setting, and I admit I’m a bit of a grump and grouch about it these days. We set these goals to prove our dedication, to achieve something, to feel like we’re progressing, but maybe we’ve forgotten the why. The Bible tells us to press on toward the prize, to mature in our faith, to grow closer to Jesus.
In his second letter, the apostle Peter gives us a road map to maturity in Christ.
His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. By these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. - 2 Peter 1:3-8, CSB
I’m not trying to denigrate goal lists or goal setting or the spiritual disciplines, far from it, actually. What I am suggesting is that much more important than the activity is the principle behind it.
Why do we need regular Bible intake through private reading and corporate gatherings? Because the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, able to penetrate to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, thoughts and intentions of the heart.2 Because the Holy Scriptures are inspired by God and good for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.3 Poring over the Bible is good for us because it critiques our lives and helps us live according to God’s will. If we read the Bible to merely read it, to check it off a list of duties, we have come to it with perhaps the wrong heart. The task is to treat the Bible like food, we must read it to nourish our hearts and minds and give us the energy to live for God’s glory.
Why do we need invest time in prayer? Because prayer is how we acknowledge what God has done in the past, what he is doing presently, and ask him to continue to work and direct us into the future. (That’s an over simplification, but generally the truth). The task is to treat prayer like a conversation with the chef, the one who made the meal we’ve ingested which will strengthen us and prepare us to go about our daily business. It’s a way to thank him and a way to communicate our thoughts about what we need, what we want to eat for dinner the next day, but even in the moment we recognize that he is going to provide a better meal than we can create for our selves.
I could go on with other things people make lists about, but you perhaps can see the point I’m trying to make. Goals are neutral. They can be helpful if you give thought to why this particular goal is beneficial. They can be harmful if you assume growth because you’ve set and subsequently achieved goals.
In this season, focus on why you want to pursue certain goals. Set your course by what God wants for you—a day-by-day trek which leads you closer to him, closer to Christlikeness.
~SDG~
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash
Christian Standard Bible (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2020), Php 3:13–14.
Hebrews 4:12
2 Timothy 3:16