For Part 1 of this series, please click on How to Set Goals and Create a Mission Statement (Part 1).
3. You did not think at all to make a plan for the year.
Remember the saying “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. This life is not about setting goals and achieving them. It is about setting a course, a mission statement, a plan that is in your heart, living every moment fully, enjoying the journey and walking in that direction being sensitive and open enough to make course corrections along the way as God directs. To do what God has put into your heart requires action steps but with those steps you must persevere, not quitting, stopping or giving up on what God put into your heart no matter what it costs you or how long it takes.
How should you begin the New Year? First, with prayer and fasting. Prayer meaning stilling the mind so you can hear what God is speaking to your heart. You must still the raging ocean of the mind to hear the drops of the voice of the Spirit on the pond of your heart. Fasting, meaning separation from anything or anyone that feeds the ego filled world filled flesh filled old mind. This means whatever you are addicted to or cannot do without for at least a year should be examined and steps taken to break the bondage.
This might be television, certain food, entertainment, social groups or certain relationships. In this life, there should only be one addiction, one need that we cannot ever be without. This is our need for the God who created us and sustains us every moment of our lives. Second, out of the prayer and fasting (time of quiet) let God speak to your heart a mission statement, a plan for your life and start to take action steps led by Him in faith that brings you along your journey or path of life.
How to Create a Mission Statement
How do you know He has put this mission statement/purpose in your heart? Here are some indicators that it is God and not your old mind:
- You have a passion to do the thing, it is not work and you will do it no matter what it costs you.
- You have everything to lose and nothing to gain from it in the world’s eyes but remember God’s ways are not man’s ways.
Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for God, and follows what God puts into his heart will find eternal life, which is to live every moment fully in His presence.
