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Do you set New Year’s resolutions each year? Or do you set goals? I find that goals seem to have a date attached to them and have more defined purpose.

The Pastor at church this weekend spoke about New Year’s resolutions and he referred to Philippians 3:12-16, the passage where Paul talks about ‘pressing towards the goal’. He said we should follow Paul’s example and gave us the following to think about:

1. Press on – to reach our goals. He also referred to Romans 5:3-5 about the need for perseverance as we press forward.
2. Forget what is behind. What is done is done. We were reminded of what Paul’s life was like when he was Saul – he had a lot of baggage he needed to get behind him. He couldn’t let his past define his future and neither should we. In other words let the new year be a new year – not a repeat of the past year.
3. Look forward to the future. What is God’s purpose and mission for your life? These are the things we should be straining towards, the things we should be setting goals for. Remember that we are not in this struggle alone and that God is with us and will be with us throughout the new year, no matter what.
4. Philippians 4:4-8 encourages us to Rejoice in the Lord always and that we should present our requests to God. That also includes presenting our goals (or resolutions) to Him and seeking His blessing on them.

Last January (2007) I set aside a whole day to think about what I wanted to do and to set goals that met both personal and business needs in my life. I wrote them out by hand and then set them up in PowerPoint. Each year the goals are printed in colour and large type, often with pictures that reflect the goals, then laminated and stuck on my office wall above my computer monitor so they are visible on a daily basis. Helps me keep on track and I usually meet at least 75% of the goals each year.

Whilst I was putting this plan together I spent the day in prayer also, and an email I received during that very time in prayer, made it even more special. You see, one of my goals was to increase my speaking engagements, i.e. I want to begin focusing on being a public speaker more. Another goal was to finish writing a book and get it published – I achieved both of these and many other things too. But going back to that email I received – it was a Google Alert that spoke of speakers ‘Lisa Bevere and Kathie Thomas….’

You probably already know who Lisa Bevere is and just the thought of sharing a stage with her is mind blowing – to be listed as a speaker with her at the same event… well! When I checked the Google Alert link it was a journal entry from a guy in the US who was writing about a conference coming up and the Kathie Thomas mentioned is a Pastor in the US.

At any rate, this seemed like a confirmation for me that I’m heading in the right direction and that my goals are ones that God will bless, and has blessed. My book was published and launched in September this year, the number of speaking engagements I’ve had this year has increased and I have bookings for 2008 already. I was also able to cut down on my working hours for 2007 and had every second Friday off in the first half of the year and every Friday off for most of the second half of the year – by ‘off’, I mean from client work. I still had plenty of my own work to get done but much of it included writing. There were a couple of other items I achieved as well. All in all, 5 out of 7 goals were achieved.

Ps Luke reminded us this morning in closing that we should turn our attention from our problems and focus on God. So, with the new year almost upon us, I hope that you will spend time in prayer and reflection re your goals for 2008 and that you will include our Father in your planning – you never know where He will lead you!

I heard the above in a conference just recently and it rang a bell with me. How often do we put up with things because it’s comfortable although we know things need to change? It’s not until we actually begin to experience a great deal of discomfort or pain, sometimes of an urgent nature, that we do something about changing the situation. And it’s usually at that point that we reach out to our God.

Our bodies do the same when we ignore the warning signals. And before we know it we’re being rushed off to hospital to undergo some procedure that might have been avoided had we taken notice of the pain. And of course, with pain change is required – a change to lifestyle, a change to diet, a change to all sorts of things in our lives and we rarely can return to our old way of life.

‘Remember that I am made of dust – will you turn me back to dust so soon? You guided my conception and formed me in the womb’ Job 10:9-10 NLT

God brings upon us many things that are designed to help us develop patience. Often we ignore those things until they get crucial and when they do we go through a lot of refining. Our faith is tested, strengthened and deepened and the pain we experience is often deep too. It could be emotional stress, physical pain, anxiety, a number of things, but once we come through it we recognise that we’ve also been experiencing some changes in our lives and those changes were accompanied by pain in various ways. As we get older, hopefully we begin to recognise those signs much quicker, and the change can be accepted with less pain involved. KMT

You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.” Psalm 40:17 NIV

The above verse is in my perpetual calendar today. For the past 3 or 4 days I’ve been a bit down in the dumps. That’s not normal for me and on the outside I’ve been normal to almost everyone I’ve chatted to – face-to-face, on the phone and via email. But someone said something to me a few days ago that upset me, and try as I might, I couldn’t get myself out of that sense of discouragement. Something I’d been doing to help others has been misread or taken out of context and that is upsetting at any time.

Add to that the disappointment of a weekend planned – my husband and I were going away for the weekend and really looking forward to it. But a chance phone call on Friday afternoon to advise the venue we’d be running late revealed they didn’t have our booking. The owner couldn’t explain it – she remembered our phone conversation and discussing the dates, she even received my email of confirmation, but for some reason it never went into her system and just this past week she booked the cottage to someone else.

I guess what made it worse was that it was a gift from our children last Christmas – we were cashing in a gift voucher for the B&B and so we’d not paid any money – it had been paid before Christmas. So that means she didn’t have our payment or a receipt there to prompt her about the booking. A new date has now been set but that’s two months away and we’ll have to wait.

The perpetual calendar with this reading goes on to say ‘Discouragement, depression, personal loss, a sense of hopelessness – they’re the universal experience of people. Take time today to call up a friend you sense may be ‘in the pits’ and share David’s testimony from Psalm 40.

The day is drawing to a close and I’ve been at my computer most of the day, reading blogs, visiting blog networks I’d not seen before, chatting with a few people via a forum and just taking the day quietly. Within the space of an hour, the last hour actually, I’d received two emails of encouragement from people I’d helped. It was around that time I realised I hadn’t yet turned the page of my calendar and here was this message.

Psalm 40:17 was in front of me and two people reached out without knowing my need but God did and He supplied. It lifts my heart, and my Spirit, to know that He cares enough to reach out to me, to time the contact from others with my reading of His Word so that I would understand what He had done for me. I fear too often we do not understand how much He does for us. How very goodHe is. KMT

discouragement, depression, hopelessness, disappointment, Psalm 40, deliverer

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps” (Prov. 16:9).

A newfound friend on the Internet in 1996 sent me a magnet which was on my filing cabinet in the office for many years. On it was the phrase which is the subject of this post. I really liked the phrase and have often used it as a catchphrase at the bottom of email signature blocks but I never really knew if it were Scriptural. It just sounded good.

Today I received the daily devotional from Os Hillman and in it was the verse from Proverbs listed above. It immediately made me think of my favourite phrase and I knew instantly where it had come from. Os was talking about how man plans a lot of things which sound really good but often the plans are not handed over to God for confirmation or approval. How often do we do that? Make plans but forget to include God in them?

For several years now I have prepared my goals for the year in full colour using Powerpoint and then print them out, laminate them and stick them on the wall just above and behind my monitor so that whenever I’m looking at my monitor, the goals are also in view. It’s important to have our plans and goals constantly in our vision – if they’re out of sight, they are often out of mind, and the end of the year can come and we wonder what happened to our plans? It’s been important to me that I adopt a bible verse as well for my goals and I include that. The goals usually include business goals and personal goals with something that also relates to my ministry and/or my connection with my Christian faith.

Late in December 2006 the pastor from my church told us about the message he received from God for our church and the Year of the Green Lights. I added this information and the verse he quoted, plus pictures of green traffic lights for emphasis and the word ‘Go’ in a big green circle.

It’s not a co-incidence, but a God-incidence that at the very time I was putting all this together (I had taken a day off for my planning day, prayer, reading, thinking, writing, etc) a Google Alert arrived with my name in it, promoting a speaking event in the US. There is a speaker there with the same name as me and she will be sharing the stage with Lisa Bevere. That email so excited me and I copied and pasted it into the PPT presentation before I printed it off. You see, one of my goals for this year is to increase how much writing I do, publish a book and do more speaking engagements. This email which could have come anytime, arrived during the time of my planning session and prayer and I believe it to be a confirmation from God that he is directing my path. And already I’ve had several articles published, am writing a book based on one of my most successful blogs and have already had several speaking engagements.

I have chosen my direction but sought God in my planning and He is directing my paths. How can I not get excited about something like that?

The sermon at church tonight was exceptional. Actually all the sermons are very good but tonight a young man who is training as a Pastor took over the senior pastor’s role and gave the sermon. The topic of late has been ‘The Will of God’ and in particular ‘What is God’s Will for my life?’ which is one of the most asked questions by Christians.

Ps Luke was nearing the end of the sermon and talking about Col 1:11 …being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully. This part of the sermon was titled ‘Just hang in there’ and he spoke about how at times it seems the easiest thing to just go back to old habits or to give up, because it all seems so hard. We often find we just cannot achieve what we’ve set out to do in our own strength and ability. Amongst other things he spoke about people in business and how often we struggle to achieve what we’ve set out to do. ‘Financial challenges are often a major part of that struggle‘ I thought, ‘as I hear so many people talking about it.’

Luke mentioned how some accuse Christians of being weak and that our faith is just a crutch but he turned that around and said if we had access to a power that was so much more than we could ever be alone, then why wouldn’t we tap into it? And then he quoted Jeremiah 17:5

This is what the LORD says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the LORD.

Why would we hang onto our own strength, or the strength of man when we have a Lord, who by His very Word, created this awesome world we live in? Who wouldn’t want to tap into a strength like that? He also quoted Ephesians 1:19-20

¹⁹and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, ²⁰which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.

What an incredible power we have access to! And yet, so many of us really don’t get it and rely on our own measly strength, or that of people around us. We look in every direction but up for help. We seek ways to change our situation, sort out our challenges, get help from others when in reality sometimes we really do need to just stop what we’re doing – and that includes panicking and worrying – and do as we’re told in Psalm 46:10a – Be still and know that I am God. We’re so afraid that if we stop we’re going to fall and yet if we do stop we could be falling right into the arms of our Father.

I heard the following on the radio the other day and wrote it down – seems quite apt here, doesn’t it?

Sorrow looks back… Worry looks around… But, faith looks up. God’s Little Instruction Book