As a mother of 4, sometimes it seems like I am running around in circles but never actually getting anything accomplished. Is there something wrong with me? Am I lazy or just not as good as the other mothers out there? Why am I not able to accomplish everything that needs to be done for my family?
Since January, I have been working to set goals for myself and our household to help us reach our milestone goals. We often discuss these goals and desired accomplishments at dinner or at our monthly family meetings. When we are all having these little chats we are pumped up and excited about how much we are going to accomplish. Then shortly after we walk away, that excitement seems to fizzle out and we find ourselves struggling for the motivation to labor towards our newly set goals.
Our family has a communications white board on the wall near the kitchen table that we use to keep ourselves focused and communicate with each other. The board has our updated calendar with appointments or activities, as well as a place to put lists for supplies and groceries. We have a section for our chore list and budget goals. However, lately, we have been adding more and more goals to track. We have an exercise tracker for pushups and sit ups, and a tracker for our healthy eating. Currently we have a steps tracking contest that we do weekly so we have a daily steps tracker for that as well. On top of that I have my personal planner with all of my to do lists as well as my career planner with to do lists and goals. All of this tracking must mean that I am really going to have a successful 2021, or so it would seem.
I was sitting in church this morning and God spoke to my heart through the message. It does not matter how hard I work to try to accomplish all of these goals. He is the only one that can help our family with accomplishments. It is with His help and His will that we will become successful at what we strive for. I realized that with all this goal setting, I have failed to set aside the time for family prayer and reading of the Bible.
I left out what should be the most important part of our family’s every day life. Our personal relationship with God and His Son Jesus Christ is THE most important accomplishment of 2021. With Christ ALLl things are possible. How is it that I left out the most important part of our family’s well being?
During the service this morning, tears came to my eyes as I realized how ineffective my goal planning the last few months has actually been. I was immediately grateful that the Holy Spirit had brought this to my attention and now I have a chance to correct this. Our family goal should be to get closer to God each and every day. We should strive to have a personal relationship with Christ that is so strong that we feel His presence throughout the day. We should be training our children up in the way they should go to worship God and all other things will fall into place.
This week will be different around our house as each day we will begin with a family devotional and read together in the Bible. This does not mean that we will drop all of the other goals we have been working to achieve. However, it does mean that we will rely more on God’s grace and ask for His help in achieving these goals. We will no longer push with everything we have, but will let God lead us on the path to meet our goals.
If you are feeling like a failure lately and it seems like you are pulling yourself up out of quicksand, please remember that you will never accomplish all of your goals without the help of God. We were never meant to live this life with all its burdens alone. If we work on prioritizing our goals to make sure God is first, everything will start falling in place much better.
Rebecca Reflects 