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A Christ-Follower’s Alternative to New Year’s Goals

掌に梅 plum blossoms on my hand

tomo tang via Compfight

Richard Dahlstrom over at Fibonacci Faith offered an alternative to setting New Year’s goals that can steal peace in our lives. What if we committed to attending to all the little revelations God gives us and made space to absorb these God-moments in order to respond well? Let’s all make this a year where we open ourselves to what God is doing. Who knows what God will do with this kind of openness and willingness to respond?

From the article:

I’m close to throwing all these in the trash though, because I keep adding more and more goals to my life, and the end result is an erosion of peace, especially the kind of peace that is promised by Christ here.  I’m beginning to wonder if all this goal setting isn’t just another carnival, tailor made for type Americans to distract us from things that really matter.  It’s appropriate, of course, to pursue health, and to hone one’s craft, be it writing, music, art, programming, or whatever.  But I’m convinced that the somewhat random objectifying of every pursuit, setting a bar and going after it, is mostly a big distraction.  The truth is that I can meet all those goals and still find myself on the summit of accomplishments, only to realize that I’ve climbed the wrong mountain. To put it another way – I can reach all my goals, and still be far from the life God has in mind for me.

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