Arrogant. Perhaps. Opinionated. Maybe. Critical. Sometimes. Aimless. Never.

People may call me lots of things, but one thing where most people will agree who know me is that I have a purpose to most everything I do; perhaps even to a fault. Playing a game of golf just for fun? Not so much. Playing a game of golf so I can build a relationship with someone or have quiet time to focus on something my mind has been racing about lately. Occasionally. (Actually about twice a year.) My life is usually aiming for something. I promise you I’m not writing this blog post just for “fun”. (What’s that?) So when I write about developing a life plan you can be sure it’s something I practice.

In my previous post 3 Questions to Help Formulate a Life Plan , I listed questions and a process to help a person think through what a personal life plan may look like for them. I want to continue that thought with some more suggestions.

This process was developed while working specifically with marriages in distress and then I began to apply it to the total life planning process. Therefore, it works equally well if used in a specific area of your life, such as marriage, parenting, career, or even your spiritual, physical and financial life.

As you work through the progressive questioning the answers become harder to attain. That’s intentional, because basically we end up striving for those things we really want in life anyway. If your life goals are shaped through a process you are more likely to work to achieve them.

Answer the questions truthfully; not how you think someone else would want you to answer them or even how you wish you could answer them. Again, we tend to work hardest for the things that are in our heart. Don’t try to make yourself something your heart is not into. Only God can do that.

Update your plan regularly. As life changes occur, you gain more life experience, or you simply mature, your answers to questions may change.

Don’t be hard on yourself when you don’t meet your end goal. Just evaluate, re-tool, and go at it again. You’ll most likely do this many times in life. The winners in life are constantly updating the vision for their life and they learn their best lessons through failure. (Someday I’ll post about failure. I know that subject well too!)

Some goals never change. The process to get there may, but the goal itself stays the same. Where you want to be spiritually and the type of family relationships you desire are examples here.

Business speaker Harvey MacKay said: “Failures don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan.” My encouragement to you is to have a plan for each area of your life in which you want to achieve success. (Please tell me that’s every area!)

One of the most common ministry opportunities I have is helping people discover God’s will and determine a life direction. I sometimes feel I get to be a sort of “life coach”. I believe strongly in having a plan of where you want to go and what you want out of life. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18) Several years ago I started asking people three questions to help them begin to formulate their own life plan. The questions are:

Where do you want to go?

Begin to ask yourself some evaluation questions. You can think of your own, but here’s some to consider. (Don’t be afraid to dream and think big when answering these questions.)

• If you could see your life in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, what would you hope to see?
• Where would you live?
• Where are you in your career?
• What kind of relationship would you have with your spouse; with your children, etc.?
• What does your relationship with God look like?

How are you going to get there?

People are usually pretty good at answering the questions above, or at least they have general ideas, but we don’t always plan a course of action to get there. One truth we cannot escape is that we will most likely end up in the direction we are heading. So, we don’t usually meet the goals we set for ourselves unless we aim for them. Begin to take the answers to the questions above and write some action steps to meeting them. What would you have to do differently in your life if you want to end up someday where you say you do?

Are you willing to pay the price?

This is always the quickest question to answer, but if it’s answered truthfully it is always the hardest question. I hear men talk about wanting a close family, but they aren’t willing to place their family ahead of their career or hobbies. Someone says they want to advance in their career, but they aren’t willing to gain the education necessary. Achieving success at anything requires a certain level of sacrifice. Some people may want to attain the level, but they aren’t willing to invest what is required to get there. At some point you will have to determine if you are.

Spend some time wrestling with these questions and you will be on your way to developing your own life plan. For accountability purposes, share them with someone close to you and give them permission to periodically ask you how you are doing.

For a continuation of this post, see THIS POST.

Are you willing to give it a try?

Last fall I was running on a country road in the middle of Kansas and was stopped dead in my tracks with this scene.  Instantly thoughts flooded through my mind.  One day I suppose a man came home from work and said to his wife, “Honey, the house is ready. The place you dreamed of is complete.  It has plenty of room, there is an upstairs like you wanted and wait until you see the rock I found with which to build it.  This house is what we’ve been working so hard to get!   We are going to be so happy in this place.”  Today, this is that same house.

This is where most of what we invest in on this earth ends up someday.  If we buy the nicest car with the best warranty; someday, unless extreme care is taken, it will be in a junk pile.  The greatest house money can buy will one day no longer be the greatest house.  Have you ever acquired the “latest” technology? Is it still the latest?  How soon did the Apple iPhone need to be upgraded to be the “latest”?    In the end, the things in the material world just don’t last. 

What’s the moral here?  Well, Jesus said it best.   (Matthew 6:19-21) “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where they can be eaten by moths and get rusty, and where thieves break in and steal.  Store your treasures in heaven, where they will never become moth-eaten or rusty and where they will be safe from thieves.  Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be. “   

Someone’s dream house sitting abandoned 100 years later was a good reminder to me to make sure I’m investing my life into things that outlast time. 

Here’s a great evaluation question: Are the places where you are investing the best part of your life in the areas you most want to grow and build something that lasts?

I always said I didn’t want anything and wouldn’t fight over stuff.  Now I’m wondering if I made a wise decision and even knew what I was saying. 

My dad called today to cut me out of the will. The conversation went like this.  “Son, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, so let me know if this bothers you in any way.  Your mom and I have been talking.  With your busy schedule and all the traveling you do, would it be a problem if we took you out of the will?” 

I mean, what could I say, right?  Being the godly-pretending pastor that I am I said, “Sure, no problem.  I didn’t want any of your junk anyway!”  I’m just kidding. He did call and that is what he said, but it wasn’t what he meant and so that isn’t how I responded. 

Here’s the real deal.  I’m the middle child.  My older brother spent 27 years in the U.S. Navy serving our country and keeping us free.  He’s now retired and has come home.  He sees my parents nearly every day. I’m not as good of a son.  He is more attentive, has more time, and will probably never leave Clarksville.  We are already packing for our next adventure. (Not really, but hopefully someday.)   My father was asking if I minded if my brother became the executor of their will in case something ever happened to them, since he was home more often.  Thankfully I understood.  I wasn’t offended.  I was actually glad to be free of a responsibility.    

It was a good thing though that I understood what he was saying or we might have had a family feud even before the reading of the will.  It was funny and was a good reminder of how the way something is said is not always how it is intended.  How many times do we misunderstand someone and misjudge them because of it?   We need to listen for motive and heart as much as we do what the person is saying.

At least I hope he was referring to changing the executor and not cutting me out completely.  If not I may need to start getting some of the stuff I want now! 

I’m conducting a very official hygiene opinion poll.  Results will be tabulated and sent to the Harvard School of Family Behavioral Sciences for further evaluation.  (Just kidding…it’s not official.  You didn’t fall for that though did you?) 

My family is divided on a hygiene issue.  Let me explain.  Jeremy, our oldest son, moved out a few weeks ago to live at the fraternity house near the college he attends in our city.  He came home this past weekend to be here.  We have better food than the fraternity house.  He forgot to bring his toothbrush.  Of course the fraternity house is a good 4 miles from our house, so it would have been much too far for him to drive to get it, so in lieu of having his own toothbrush (Apparently as you will see, we are a weird family in that everyone has their own) he decided to use mine.  When I realized this I threw up (vomited). 

I confronted my family about this serious health violation and we were split in our opinion on the wrongness of this act.  Cheryl and Jeremy think this is an okay thing to do if you need a toothbrush.  They seem to believe you can share germs and bacteria if you are related.  (“Just run some hot water on it”, they said.)  Nathaniel agreed with me saying, “That is the grossest thing I’ve ever heard of.”  In an attempt to break a tie vote I asked Jeremy’s girlfriend her opinion.  I was sure she would agree with me.  She didn’t.  She responded with the same “Run hot water over it” answer.   

I need your help.  Will you agree with me that using someone else’s toothbrush is WRONG?  Don’t you think it would be better to brush your teeth with your finger than to use someone else’s toothbrush?  

In the meantime, I have purchased new toothbrushes and all their handles have been wrapped with masking tape.   I’ve warned anyone who touches them that they face cruel and unusual punishment. 

Obviously the world is changing at rapid pace. The technological age has made the world faster, smaller, thinner, bolder, sexier, and more complex.  We have more options, but with those advances come more challenges.  This morning our server was down and one would have thought the sky had fallen. Last week I left my Blackberry at my office when I ran out to a meeting.  I was miserable, unproductive and moody at that meeting. (Sorry guys.)  Our worlds often center around technology.  What would we do without it?  It helps us do our work so much more efficiently, yet it’s also sometimes a stumbling block to real success in the areas of our life that matter to God (and hopefully us) most.

Our family minister, Michael Bayne, shared a story with me today that quickly put things into perspective.  Apparently his 2 year old daughter finds it funny to hide his Mp3 player.  He freaks on her, because he loves his music, but she thinks it’s funny.  Instantly I smelled a rat in this picture.  Could his 2 year old be crying out “Pick me, Pick me” over this piece of technology?  Granted, Michael Bayne is one of the most attentive, loving, great dads I know, but sometimes a 2 year old can be used to teach us some valuable lessons. 

So, here’s a question for us all…

Is your technology more important than the personal, God-given, relationships you have?     If you had to give up one or the other for a night, which would it be?  (Be honest.) 

Now having answers those questions (with correct answers obviously because we couldn’t admit otherwise, could we?), the next question is rather clear:

Is that answer reflected in the way you are currently living your life? 

Ouch! 

I’ve been following the story of the girls in a Massachusetts town who are believed to have formed a pact to get pregnant together.  The stories are all over the Internet; including many chat rooms and rumor pages calling the girls “retarded” and making other derogatory statements about them.  Apparently the girls would go to the school nurse to have pregnancy tests and were more excited when they were pregnant than when they found out they weren’t.  One girl even admits that a 24 year old homeless man is the father of her baby.  The school’s pregnancy rate among students this year is over four times what it was last year. 

We can stand in awe of this story, but I think it’s a very sad commentary on our society and ultimately on those of us who call ourselves the church. Some of the quotes I read about the girls:

The school superintendent said: “Many of our young people are growing up directionless.”

A fellow student said, “They’re so excited to finally have someone to love them unconditionally,”

Another adult in the system said these were, “girls who lack self-esteem and have a lack of love in their life.”

Finally, one student may have said it best when she said, “No one’s offered them a better option.”

While I am thankful on one hand that these girls value life enough to have carry their babies, I couldn’t help but think about the teenage girls in my own community, the one where I’m involved in planting a church.  Are they just as confused about how to find true love?  Are they just as desperate?  We claim to be offering a better “Way”.  We certainly believe we have a “better option”, but do these girls know it?  Have we shared with them the unconditional love of Christ?  Do they sense that kind of love in us? 

I am thankful in my community for some great Christian youth leaders and para-church ministries, as well as teachers and administrators, who attempt to reach our young people each day, but I still wonder if we need to be doing more at the church level, specifically to help train parents, change a culture that’s dying for love and looking for it in all the wrong places, and reach those who feel left behind and unloved in our society.   I see these girls pact as a wake-up call to the church to be the church God has called us to be; to be light into darkness. 

Some days I just don’t feel as good about the day as I do other days. That’s probably natural. I was speaking today on parenting; how important it is to capture the heart of our children. I knew going into it that my audience was broader than that subject, but I also knew those parents of young children need to hear what was said. It’s a balance sometimes. If we are going to address life issues specifically, then some people in the room are not going to be dealing with the issue we are addressing on that day.

I’m praying God filters through all that to do His work in our people’s lives.

Confidentially (as if a Blog is confidential), I’m more frustrated about the people who weren’t there today who needed to hear this message.