Setting Goals for God
Haggai 2:19 says that we can count on a blessing from God even before a seed has been sown. This means the blessing is unconditional and not contingent upon any action or behavior from us. This means the blessing is not transactional. This means the blessing is free.
Doesn’t this just make you sigh with great relief and cause a feeling of lightness, like a great weight is being lifted from you?
Sadly, because many cultures, including our own business cultures, are centered on the “you must give in order to receive” mentality, we have automatically conditioned ourselves into believing that our relationships, including our relationship with God must also be one that is transaction based; that effort is required from us in order for a blessing from God to be given to us.
But again, let’s look at Haggai. He speaks to the Hebrews after they have returned to their homeland following the Babylonian exile and explicitly tells them, “Is the seed still in the barn? As yet the vine, the fig tree, the pomegranate, and the olive tree have not yet yielded fruit. But from this day I will bless you.”
The Hebrews had grown weary, unfocused, tired, lacking in direction, and forgetful of the vision that God had given them before the exile. God wanted to reassure them, through Haggai, that despite these things they could still count on God to bless them, to be there for them, to provide for them with the resources they needed to be revived and restored.
The same is true for us today. In every aspect of our lives, whether it’s physically, mentally, spiritually, financially, emotionally, relationally, or vocationally, we can count on God to bless us.
In his New Year’s Eve message, Steven Furtick, Lead Pastor of Elevation Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, counted down to the New Year by declaring 52 things that he is counting on God to do in his life and in the lives of his church’s attendees in 2014. Some of the things that he listed were: to protect us, to direct us, to change us, to amaze us, to provide for us, to embolden us, to heal us, to pursue us, to forgive us, and to be with us.
Since I’m not one for resolutions, but I do set goals for myself, I started thinking about why not do something similar to what Pastor Steven is doing and set goals for God; things that I want to be able to count on God for this year.
So, I started a list of my goals for God. Some of them relate to my career aspirations, some of them to my husband and our marriage, some of them to my general well-being, and some of them to my calling in life.
So, how about you? If you believed what God told Haggai to tell the Hebrews, and you knew you could count on a blessing from God, what goal would you set for Him?
