Why You Aren't Meeting Your Goals: The Spiritual Component + FREE Printable Activity

How do you make plans to reach your goals? Do you think about your end goal and work backward from there? Do your stressors determine how you prioritize tasks? Does your husband, children, or job, reign over your scheduling and planning?

I must admit, this is a hard one for me. As early as I can remember, I was taught, “You determine the way your life turns out.” I am serious, I had it all planned out! When I was an eight-year-old girl, I was pretty sure I would be living in a castle and married to a prince by age 22. I missed the target on that one, ha! But in all seriousness, I did not know that God should come first in everything I do.

Now, there is nothing wrong with planning. God gives us wonderful gifts like organization, management, and prioritization to help us navigate our lives on Earth. Planning is our tool to meet goals and to reach our life’s purpose. But where do we place God in all of these plans? How can we implement obedience and submission in this category?

Important: God is our creator. He carefully placed us in the era, location, and in a specific family all to serve a purpose he planted in us. Therefore, there is no arguing that God’s will for our lives is superior to our own. In other words, He knows what He is doing, so let him in!!!

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SPIRITUAL PREPARATIONS ARE KEY TO REACHING GOALS

It is always important to look at the Bible as a reference point in any area we seek to grow in our lives. I want to zoom in on four different leaders in the Old Testament of the Bible, Saul, Moses, Ezra, and Nehemiah.

Each of these individuals had a purpose that the Lord called them to fulfill. They each had a goal to reach. They each had trials, personal life challenges, and cultural expectations to manage.

God was with these leaders in the beginning, but mismanagement of responsibility, emotional decision making and fear led to a turn of events for some of these leaders. Sadly, some of them never lived in the fruit of their purpose. Let’s take a look:

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Despite the cultural differences to ours today, the stories of these leaders can be applied to our lives today. They faced distractions, they made decisions based on emotion, they had moments of throwing in the towel to frustration. The leaders who did prevail leaned on faith and consulted with God before making any moves. They too had moments of fear, moments of deep trial, but they knew God would be right there so long as they trusted in Him and consulted with him before making a move.

Practice reading the Bible, praying, fasting before you start planning for a goal.

To learn more about the lives of each of these leaders read the following books/ verses in your Bible:

Story of Moses: Exodus - Deuteronomy

Story of Saul: 1 Samuel 9-31

Story of Ezra: Ezra 7:1 - 10:16 & Nehemiah 8: 1-12; 36

Story of Nehemiah: Book of Nehemiah

#God #nature