Thought for the week. Goals and Desires

I really want to start posting thoughts for the week on my blog. I kind of got the idea from my friend Rhett where he sometimes puts up weekend musings. I want to be more regular in my blogging and also post with some consistency. I feel that this will cause me to think more about life, become more disciplined and also give regular visitors something to think about during the week. Here's hopin it goes well.

This week we had a guy come in to talk to our staff named Mike. He was talking about counciling people, specifically the students that come to our schools, our staff and each other. One of the things that he talked about which I want to write about here is the fine line and difference between a goal and a desire.

We talked about how people get mad at God, themselves and others because they set goals for themselves that they have no control over. Here is an example. Is it a good goal to want your children to grow up following Christ? NO. The reason that it is not a good goal is that we have no control over weather or not our children grow up following Christ. Now it is a good desire to have that our children grow up to follow Christ, but it can't be a goal. The thing about goals and desires is that they are so close together.

Let me explain. We can only have goals for ourselves. We can have a goal to be a good husband, or a good father, or a good friend, but we can't have a goal that someone be a good friend to us, or a good spouse to us, or a good child. These are desires. We can only do what we can do and the response of those people around us is up to them, not us. If we have a goal for our kids to be followers of Christ we may manipulate or twist things so that this happens, instead of just loveing our kids, raising them in the way's of Christ and letting the Holy Spirit do the work in their lives to draw them to walk in the way's of Jesus. I hope that this in making sense, and if not then take some time to think about it. I still am.

I have set goals in my life to be a good friend, love my wife and raise my children to be followers of Christ. Now it is my desire that I have good friends, that my wife is loving and faithfull to me and that my children walk with Jesus. What are your goals and desires?