“Do more, and do it better!” Isn’t that what we all want for ourselves for the coming New Year? As I contemplate these words I am reminded of when I first found myself saying them. It was one of the many times that I was trying to come up with goals for myself for some professional development exercise that was either self inflicted or requested by a mentor or accountability person. Having worked in corporate America for a very short period of time, and having served on the Board of Directors for the Church of God in Michigan for several years, I am very well acquainted with this professional compulsion to “Set Goals” and “Evaluate Progress”, and to be honest I am all for it, unless it simply becomes another way of saying, “Do More, and do it better”. Let me explain.
We all need to evaluate ourselves from time to time, and also allow others into that process. It can be very healthy for us to look at our shortcomings, and rediscover lost goals that busyness has caused us to forget so that we can refocus on what is really important to us, and to God. We can all do with some improvement, and processes of goal setting and evaluation are certainly one way to keep ourselves on track. The difficulty comes when we begin to set our self worth based solely on whether or not we can fulfill the goals that we set, or at least see tangible progress toward meeting them. Furthermore if we repeat this process every year we can simply end up heaping more and more goals on top of the ones that we wish we would have completed last year, until we feel like our whole lives are about “Doing more and doing it better”!
If you really think about it, you will probably discover that some of the greatest victories in your spiritual life came when you weren’t expecting them, through interruptions of your sacred routine. Our primary responsibility in this life is to be faithful to the calling that God has placed on our lives, and that means that we must be sensitive to God’s leading, and allow His Spirit to flow through our lives to bless others. If we aren’t careful, our desire to “Do more, and do it better” can cause us to miss opportunities to serve others, love the unloved, relate to those who desperately need relationship, and be the hands and feet of our savior to those around us.
I guess what I am trying to say is this, Go ahead and set goals. Evaluate your progress faithfully. Just don’t miss opportunities to serve your creator along the way, and by all means find your value in the fact that God loved you enough to send his Son to die for you on the cross of Calvary and not on whether or not you can complete a yearly list of goals. If you must “Do more”, then do more to build your relationship with Christ, and if you must “Do it better”, then do better at listening to His voice. May your New Year be filled with Joy, Faithfulness, and Peace!
You are loved,
PJ