Smart Goals | A Different ApproachSample

How Are We Supposed to Plan our Future? Part 1

Don’t get me wrong. We should set goals, and consider how we live, for our time is but a vapor. It’s fleeting and short-lived, and God tells us that our works will be tested in the end and proved as to whether what we did will come out as gold or chaff. Only faith-filled work will remain as a testament to God’s work and faithfulness. Everything else will blow away. We must, therefore, take what we do seriously.

We must call into question why we’re setting goals, and to what end. I think the Israelites journey through the desert can possibly help us, and in the next two days of our study we’re going to consider primarily Number 28-29. 

God had rescued his people from tyrannical slave masters. They were in a new place with new horizons. As you read the first part of Numbers today, think back to the wandering of the Israelites in the desert. Think about what God took care of his people even down to the smallest detail. 

The dead-floating-Egyptian army in the Red Sea were a monument of God’s victory in the past, and his cloud and pillar of fire leading Israel toward the Promised Land was God’s monument to the future. In other words, every time God’s people looked back into the past, they were to see that God had closed that door with victory. No more slavery, no more fear. Upon looking forward, God did not expect them to know the future in the slightest. All God required was that they went when he moved, and stayed when he stayed. He was the goal setter and they were the followers.

This was a mob of people completely confined to the moment. In Day 4 of this study, and Part 1 of this next two days, read the first part of the story of the Israelite journey through the wilderness. I'd encourage you to sit down and read all of Numbers for the full benefit.

As you read, consider how the Israelites interacted with their past, and how they grew frustrated at God’s leadership on into the future. Think and ponder about why their reactions were so, and consider your own trust of our Good and Gracious God. Unfortunately, we all carry the same sin-sick soul that the Israelites did, and though our God has saved us from our proverbial “Egypt,” and the enemies of Satan and sin, we allow the remnant and memories of our slavery and our “lesser loves” to control our way forward. Maybe more than we’d care to admit.