Lists and Goals

I've never been good at writing a list of things to do or writing down goals. For someone who is a writer at heart you'd think I'd be obsessed with those two things, but I'm not. I guess it's the pressure I feel after seeing my list in black and white, all the stuff I have to do and all the stuff I'm striving for. What if I don't get it all done? What if I don't get any of it done? The old Carla would rather not try than try and fail.

Slowly I've began to cave to creating a list of things to get done. Actually, it's starting to work...the problem now is I have lists everywhere! So, that system still needs some work. Yesterday in a meeting at work we were given a sheet to help us get started setting goals for the year for our individual areas at church. Apparently I'm going to set goals regardless of how I feel about it.

Then I read this "So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step. I am not like a boxer who misses his punches. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should" 1 Corinthians 9:26-27. Paul had a goal and sought it out with purpose in every step. God had a goal when He created the Earth...and us. He also did things in a certain order; He didn't create man first. God had a list of things to do and did it with purpose in every breath.

I have declared 2011 to be a year of clarity for me and it seems that one way I'm going to gain that is by lists and goals. So today I shall embrace the list because I see it as a tool to help me, not a way of reminding me that I have too much to do. Today I shall embrace goals because I see it as a road map to help make sense of the vision God has given me and the direction I know He's leading us, not as a way of reminding me I'll never be able to achieve that. Lists and goals help us go STRAIGHT and with PURPOSE....isn't that what we all want?