Life Goals

I love eating out!! My family and I always get excited (probably too much so) when we head out to one of our favorite restaurants. One of the parts of the process I love is when we find unique aspects of a restaurant and we begin to enjoy them as a family. When we go to a Chinese restaurant, we always laugh at the fortunes in the cookie and we try to make up our own funny sayings. When we go to our favorite burger joints we always debate who has the best fries (MacDonald’s) vs. the best burgers (Burger King).

The other night we went to Chipotle, rapidly becoming one of our favorite Mexican food planes. Not only are the burritos the size of a small boulder, but you can add in all kinds of toppings and sauces to make that bad boy sing some sweet music!! As we were eating we realized that Chipotle has little stories on their cups that tell about people the owners of the company know and some things that they have said or done that has made a difference. As we were reading our different cups, one quote hit me as profound and important.

“If your life’s goal can be accomplished in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough.” This is a quote from Wes Jackson, who runs The Land Institute. I know almost nothing about Wes Jackson, but I was drawn to this quote. There is something that resonates with me and that has some incredible spiritual application to all of us.

If we are focused on accomplishing something in our lifetime that will go to the grave with us, we are not shooting at a big enough target. Our goal should be to build into the next generations and into the world a purpose and a vision and mission that outlasts us. Our life’s work should go on much longer than our life here on this earth.

In church life we often get consumed by small ideas. We look at the next program, the next meeting, the next budget and building and our lives become consumed with things that eventually will fall apart. What would be the outcome if we began to focus on the next generation of leaders? What if our focus was the next generation of un-churched people who need to know Christ? What if our main concern was our legacy and not our reputation?

We need bigger dreams in the kingdom of God. We need people willing to put agendas aside and focus on eternity and not temporary outcomes. We need a long range focus and short range urgency. What if we began to have life goals that would outlast us?

What is your life goal? How long will it last?