Reaching for the bar

I've always been told to begin with the end in mind. Does that sound familiar? The question is though, what is the end? Is it achieving our goals? What if it's something even better, what if it's failing at what we thought we wanted and reaching something higher? What if our goal is too easy and we find ourselves challenged by something completely unexpected instead?

For the last two weeks I have ridden my bike to the same spot, parked by the same swings....and... failed at the same task.

This park isn't far from my house and is my favorite place to go swing (yes I'm still a kid and love to swing) because the swings are set higher up off the ground than most. Recently, I brought a friend to this park and he challenged me to jump up and grab the bar that the swings hang from. I couldn't. As much as I tried, I failed again and again. The bar was simply too high. 

When it comes to goals though, I don't think you can ever set the bar too high. Excellence is to be strived for and caught hold of, dreams are meant to be seized, standards are there to be met and set even higher.
I believe that we should set lofty life goals, dream big even if we feel like it's impossible, because those big dreams lead us to work hard and become better.

The Bible has quite a lot to say on hard work and excellence, we are also warned against the opposite: laziness. Proverbs 6:6-8 says, "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest." The New Testament tells us to do all things as though we were doing them for the Lord, which ought to be a huge motivator to strive for excellence. Often we're told that losing is ok, we shouldn't be competitive cause we could hurt someone's feelings, or that winning isn't all that valuable. While I agree that we need to be ok with losing and winning isn't the only valuable thing, I still think there's a place for the kind of challenge that comes through trying to be the best. "Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another" -Proverbs 27:17. Trying to be the best at whatever we do cultivates a mentality of excellence that Christians should desire.

I heard an illustration a few weeks ago that talked about how hard we work on assignments for professors who grade our work. The professors that aren't super strict, are annoying, or don't command much authority make us not want to work as hard on their assignments. The more we respect the professor and the more we desire his approval the harder we work on the assignment. So if you're professor is God, how hard are you going to work on the assignment? Is it just enough to do things to check the box and get it done? Or will you push yourself constantly to become better and chase higher goals?
Let's be competitive, strive to win, work hard, and become the best we can be because that's what it means to work as though you were doing it for the Lord.

Set your bar as high as you can. Desire to do something significant, from there you can take baby steps. But don't make the baby step your real goal or lose sight of what you really want to accomplish. Keep things doable, set the next step, but don't get bogged down in the details and let go of your dreams just because they feel so distant. What is it you really want to achieve in life? Not like in the next semester or the next week, but in life what do you want to get done? Often in life, the little things consume enough of our time that we think they are the big things, getting a great job becomes the end goal rather than using that great job to achieve your real goals. Yeah, we all want a great job but we should want that job so that we can do the other things in life that we want even more, the big dreams we have. And when we reach the bar we've set, let's aim even higher.
In the pursuit of excellence we should set goals that seem almost impossible, standards that actually challenge us and push us to the next level. We ought to never settle for where we are.

After two weeks of biking to this park and jumping as high as I could (I'm sure people thought I was crazy), I finally caught a hold of the bar that held the swings up. No, this didn't really count as a life goal but to do something I thought was impossible felt really good. One of my life goals is graduating college when I am 18, I set that when I was only 14 years old. It felt impossible and it was definitely crazy, but now I'm only two semesters away from graduating with my Bachelor's degree in business. People have so much potential that often isn't realized because we fail to reach high enough. Let's set our goals high and reach for them until we get them. Never ever give up on dreams regardless of how impossible they seem. 

Losing a dream

A while ago, I wrote about a dream of mine that I achieved and one that has kind of become my life goal. But the desires of our heart are many and along the way we plan new things and aim for new achievements. We never stop dreaming. Sometimes we get there, sometimes we give up, sometimes we simply have to let go. I had to let go. I lost a dream. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Right now, dreams seem to be dying all around us: graduations canceled, weddings postponed, camps rescheduled, trips take a rain check and are proms delayed. The things we pray about and long for don't always happen. God always answers our prayers, but sometimes that answer is "No". There are a lot of "No's" right now. So what do we do when dreams die?

"Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth." -Colossians 3:3

"But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." -Philippians 3:14

Don't stand still, keep moving but refocus. Proverbs says that the Lord will direct our steps, but in order for that to be true, we have to keep walking. Through trials, through valley's, through the ashes of the dead dreams, through the mistakes and the losses, we walk forward in faith setting our mind on Christ and His plans for us. John Waller in his song "Faith Is Living" writes, "I wish I could see just three steps in front of me, but the lamp unto my feet, it only moves when I take a step." We are being guided toward a future that is hopeful, we only have to keep taking steps forward. Sometimes that means losing a dream.

Now don't get me wrong, the Lord delights to give us the desires of our heart. Every good and perfect gift comes from Him and He loves to see us rejoicing in blessings. That doesn't mean we always get the things we want but it does mean we will always get the things we need. This dream I had was something I thought I needed and definitely something I desperately wanted. When I got a no I had to realize that it wasn't what I needed. I regret losing that dream, it hurts and it's hard. My plans and hopes were set on it and when that dream died I felt like my world would fall apart. But when we think our world is falling apart we have to realize that it's actually falling into place. It will all make sense in time. So, in Christ, we must move on. Make plans according to what you believe God wants and then dream of things that you can do that will glorify Him and bring you joy. In the song "He's Always been Faithful" by Sara Groves we get the following truth, “I can’t remember a trial or a pain he did not recycle to bring me gain. I can’t remember one single regret in serving God only and trusting his hand. All I have need of his hand will provide. He’s always been faithful to me” God will be faithful and bring His promises to pass.

If you've lost a dream recently, you're not alone. Being told "no" hurts and it doesn't often make sense. But let's continue to walk forward in faith. Keep dreaming, keep trusting, keep praying. And one day it will all fall into place.