Hello and welcome to Thursdays in 2023. I hope today is kind to you.
I am glad to be back in the groove a bit — I’m always grateful for the celebration of the holidays and equally delighted to emerge back into the routine. One lowlight of our break was spending twelve hours attempting to travel a distance that usually takes nine hours. By hour ten, I was tired, cranky, and unable to drive anymore. Thank goodness I had a responsible and properly licensed nineteen-year-old in the car.
The Part Where There’s an Essay: Four Truths about Goals
Is everyone tired of talking about goals yet? Maybe it’s still the phenomenon of emerging from two years of unreliable pandemic living, but I noticed an unusually high amount of chatter about goal-setting this year. Are people feeling more that they can count on their lives to look reliably “normal” again? Southwest Airlines might teach us that things might “come up.”
Our times are in God’s hands.
When I wrote about goal-setting two years ago, the verses I referred to were Psalm 90:
10 Our lives last seventy years
or, if we are strong, eighty years.
Even the best of them are struggle and sorrow;
indeed, they pass quickly and we fly away.
11 Who understands the power of your anger?
Your wrath matches the fear that is due you.
12 Teach us to number our days carefully
so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.
and James 4:
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring — what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes.
15 Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
The theme here is clear: our hours, days, and years are laid out by God. We can try to spend them as best we can, but ultimately the story is His. We are not the main character. He is.
Part of our calling as Christians is to be stewards.
We understand the parable of the talents in Matthew 25 to be a larger metaphor about using what God has given us. Whether it be our time, our abilities, our tiny bit of earth, or our money, there is a calling in scripture to be aware of what we’ve been given and exercise shrewd care over it. So we may rightfully strive for growth in certain ways.
“Whatever you do, do it from the heart,” Colossians 3 reminds us, and so we must try to do just that. But sometimes that “goal” looks more like “continue to be faithful” or “grow in contentment with [fill in your disappointment here],” or “rest in God’s care for me.” These goals are not as showy or instagram-worthy as finishing a marathon, but they are just as (and perhaps more) valid.
Unpredicted things shape our character.
Whether it be a canceled flight, illness, a challenging person at work, or a baby who won’t take a nap, each interruption is sent by God, and we are wise to receive it that way. As Lewis reminds us:
“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day.”
Our “real life” is meant for being shaped more into the character of Christ. God desires this for us, and He frequently accomplishes it by sending these “interrruptions,” which are, in fact, planned. (Ephesians 2:10)
Goal-setting does not mean having control.
This is where we get into trouble. Goals are just that — things we hope to do, given the right circumstances. But we must thread the needle here: setting a goal to do something does not mean wresting control of that thing from God’s hand.
I had hoped to continue to make running a part of my life, but I had to have foot surgery. I didn’t plan for it to take more than a full year for me to be able to run again, but it did. I was frustrated by the interruption. At the heart of my frustration is the illusion of control. I expected a certain outcome, and it didn’t happen.
This article about the hustle mentality and comfort culture struck a chord with me. I agree that these two extremes on the continuum are two sides of the same coin. We are either pursuing comfort at all costs, shutting down any effort to embrace reality; or we are pursuing hustle at all costs, shutting down any embrace of reality that is less-than-optimized. We are either glorifying efficiency or fleeing reality — neither of these is ideal for a life meant for loving God and loving others. Listening to and loving people tends to be inefficient and uncomfortable.
For the Anglophiles
The Natural History Museum in London put their T-Rex in a Christmas jumper:
Tiny arms need tiny sleeves.
Reads & Listens of the Week
6 Ways to Lead in Divisive Times: “A good leader listens to others even if it feels inefficient, because love is inefficient. Jesus could have snapped his fingers and been done with creation, redemption, history—the whole thing—but instead he threw efficiency to the wind and wastefully entered our mess to bring about new creation. Listen well and you will love well.”
Office Ladies did a sweet Look Back on “Casino Night” with John Krasinski. Seasons two and three are the best seasons of The Office, and this episode is one of the best.
This is a wild look back, for those who might be interested: here’s Christianity Today’s article from 1976 entitled “The Year of the Evangelical ‘76.”
I loved Jonathan’s reminder about habits and the new year: Keep on Beginning. “I'm grateful for a holiday that reminds us that one of the things that makes us human is the ability to begin and begin again.“
Joy is the serious business of heaven. — CS Lewis, Letters to Malcolm