What are you planning to do differently in 2020? I’m a bit behind, but will have my goals finalized very soon.
I’m going to have categories of goals. Professional goals, personal goals, mission goals and family goals. Over-riding all goals is my continuous goal of striving to be like Christ.
What does it mean to strive to be like Jesus? Much can be said, but what it means most to me is dying to myself more and more in exchange for being transformed into an image more like Jesus.
The older I get, the more I look at the big picture, and nothing affects my goal setting process more. By the big picture, I mean that I look at my life as a whole. I don’t think as much about this year as I think about my last year, assuming that I will live to old age, which is a very big assumption.
Another way to say what I mean is this: I think about my legacy. I never thought about legacy before, and I’m not sure why it has become an obsession of mine. Maybe it’s a symptom of mid-life crisis? Have I reached mid-life? This gets more and more depressing by the sentence!
All silliness aside, I’m serious about living a meaningful life, a life that will have positive future effects. What future effects? Influence. I want to be influential, but not for my sake, but for Christ’s sake.
One of my favorite artists sings a song with the line, “I don’t need the world to know my name – it never mattered if they did.” I agree. If my name is known but Christ’s name is not, I’ve failed. In our community if we are known but Christ is not, we’ve failed.
No matter what your goals are for this year, let me encourage you to set your goals with the words of John the Baptist, referring to Jesus, from John 3:30 –
He must increase, but I must decrease.
No matter the goal, may the core of the goal be the world’s increased knowledge of Jesus and the decreased knowledge of all that is less significant.
Much love,
Wes LeFlore (918) 607-8489 or huskerwes1@gmail.com
