Reaching my goals is a marathon made up of my daily decisions.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. I tend to read 2-3 books at a time. That way I have a book going for every possible kind of mood I’m in. I have a short attention span, so it works for me.
You all know I’ve been reading Your Money or Your Life. This week I read a chapter in which the authors wanted me to define my values. My purpose in life. And then they wanted me to ask if my financial decisions were moving me closer to or away from that life purpose. I’ve been thinking about that all weekend.
Then yesterday I was reading another book, Never Say Diet by Chantel Hobbs. In that book, Hobbs challenged me to always be the best me I can be. And she asked if the decisions I was making in my life were making me the best I could be or not? A lot to chew on for one weekend, that’s for sure.
Whenever I read two or more things that are telling me the same thing in a short time frame, I wonder if God is trying to tell me something. If you’re a Christian and you regularly go to church and attend Bible studies, you probably know what I’m talking about. You’re sitting in your Bible study one week, and a point really hits home. Then a few days later in church, your pastor makes the same point. As Oprah would say, it’s an "Aha! Moment".
And that’s what I had this weekend. An Aha! Moment. As a Christian, I know my purpose in life is to glorify God. I’ve known that for a long time. However, when I get wrapped up in day to day life, I often forget my life purpose. I just focus on the task at hand. And my human nature is is fairly lazy, so I often try to make the task at hand as painless as possible.
I’ve said many times that my weakness in the budget is eating out. I don’t particularly like to cook, I’m not especially organized, and I have too many nights when it’s 4:00, I don’t know what to make for dinner, and we go out, because I don’t feel like making a decision and cooking. But is that glorifying God?
No, it’s not. It’s not glorifying God, because God wants me to get out of debt. He wants me to make the best use of my money, and at this point in my life, eating out is not the best use of my money. It takes us away from the point of becoming debt-free.
It’s not glorifying God, because it’s not the best use of my body. Eating too much fast food is not healthy. Not for me, not for my husband, and not for my children. If my body is the temple of God, I’d best take care of it. And I confess I haven’t been doing a very good job.
I do need to make a couple of points here. Though I’ve just said that my eating out is not glorifying to God, I don’t think that eating out is wrong. I do believe that God wants us to enjoy life as we’re glorifying Him. And sometimes that means going out for dinner. But going out as often as I do when I’m in debt is not right.
I also want to acknowledge that as a human, I’m never going to be the perfect me. I can strive to be the best that I can be, but I’m going to mess up and fall down. But I can’t use that as an excuse to quit trying all together. Life is full of failure and disappointments. The important thing is that I learn, adjust and move on.
And finally, it’s important to remember that I’m not in this alone. I can’t be in this alone. In my own strength, I don’t have it in me. But if I make the effort, God will help me along to be the best that I can be. To glorify Him. That’s what he wants for me. I just keep repeating the verse, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength". Philippians 4:13. As one of my former pastors used to say. "Everything. What does that leave out? Nothing!" Can I have an Amen? :)
What do you think? Do you have a purpose in life? What is it? Are you moving closer to it, or away from it in your daily decisions? Even if you’re not a Christian, I’m interested in what you have to say. What’s your purpose? How do you make the decisions that you make?
Photo by bexdc.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
We just got back on track this weekend. Our goals got skewed and we were going about things backwards. God got our attention and got us refocused on His plan and His goals. It is so easy to get off track, so easy to look at things immediately in front of us instead of looking ahead at the bigger goal. I have never been one to look ahead, and neither is my husband. Only by keeping our focus on God do we stay focused–this last week we focused on everything falling apart around us instead. Praise the Lord that He is willing to pick us up and dust us off each time we take our eyes off Him.
Excellent post!
My purpose in life is to make sure that the world is a better place when I leave than it was when I got here.
As I’m rubbish at remembering to do things, I’m working on getting being nice, thoughtful, kind to the environment, etc into my habits so that it all comes naturally.
Amen, sister! :) I think you’re doing a good job of finding the middle of grace. Eating out can be good for days when there’s few other options or when you want to celebrate. But eating in to pay off your debt is preferable. It’s important to realize both instead of justifying the first as a necessity or taking the second hard and fast and making yourself/your family miserable…
Great Post…Having a plan is really the difference between being alive and Living!
Excellent post. Thanks for sharing. Pleasing God is impossible, except through the finished work of His Son. We’re still expected to try, though. :)
Awesome article Lynnae. I’m with you, our big weakness is eating out as well. My wife likes to cook and is a very good cook, we just always seem to have something going on for our kids in the evening and her cooking dinner, us eating and being where we need to have the kids by 5:00 or 6:00 is hard.
Amen sister! :-)
Your Money or Your Life is one of the key books that got me started thinking about how I spend my money, and whether the things I buy really ‘match’ with my values. I love that you’ve found a great way to question yourself with each decision/purchase (i.e. “Does this help me honor God?”) For me, I’m still at the want versus need stage: do I NEED that new cell phone, or do I really just want it because it’s kind of cool?
I actually created the spreadsheet from YMOYL so that I could track my spending and also create a visual reminder of whether each of my purchases (not matter what it was) contributed to my sense of fulfillment and helping me support my own values. It has really helped me!
Thanks for a great post!
Thanks, everyone! It’s hard to find the balance sometimes, especially since I tend to be an all or nothing type of person. It’s hard for me to find middle ground and stay there.
@glblguy – After school activities make things rough for us, too, though it will be easier now that Jim gets off work earlier. He can have soccer practice duty this spring. I’ll stay home and cook. :)
@ Finally Frugal – I need to find a way to track things, too. Having a visual reminder of my goals and how I’m doing always helps.
You have your goal post on life very well defined and in sight.
There may be little deviations here and there, but once you have the post in your sight, making the required corrections and getting there will be that much easier.
All the best in your journey, Lynnae
How timely! Our pastor talked about Philipians 4:13 this Sunday in his sermon! :)
That would be “Philippians.” Pardon my spelling error!
What an inspiring read. My husband and I are also trying our hardest to get out of debt and our weakness is eating out. Just mainly on the weekends tho. It’s our only vice so to speak so I guess that’s not too bad!; )
AMEN! Very thought provoking post Lynnae! Thanks for sharing.