GPS for the New Year: Goals, Plans, and Prayer | Fierce Church Sermon

Hey, what up?

It's Mark Carter.

I'm the pastor of Fierce Church.

Welcome to our podcast.

I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.

I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.

Enjoy the message.

I'm excited about today's message.

Man, I'm really excited about 2025.

I'm hungry.

I'm ready to do this.

I'm ready to charge out with a bucket of water I don't know if you are, but I am and so I'm praying that whatever fire is burning in me right now will get off on some of you, that you would receive this, you'd lick it up and you'd be ready to just get up and fight again.

Somebody say, fight again.

Yeah, congratulations.

Also, you now have, you've got a fresh batch 365 fresh days with Jesus, fresh opportunities.

You've made mistakes?

Hey, brand new one today and you get 364, or however many are left in the year for the rest of this year.

His mercies are new every morning.

And he's got a new plan.

He's got a ready plan.

He's got a plan B, c, d, e, f and G.

He's got all new plan.

He's got a ready plan.

He's got a plan B, c, d, e, f and G.

He's got all the plans.

No matter what you did, no matter what you messed up, no matter what went wrong, jesus is ready to help.

He's here.

He wants us to come to him boldly and he wants to give us mercy and grace in our time of need.

That's what he does.

Somebody say that's what he does.

So we're going to talk about goals.

You probably you've done this.

You've seen this.

You know that there comes a point when someone they know maybe this year I'm going to do a budget, I'm going to get my finances really online, we're really going to get going with this thing.

But time goes by and though they had the feeling of desire to improve the budget, they never really did anything about it.

It was just a feeling.

They're like I will spend less when I'm in the line and that just didn't really pan out.

Or, you know, there's folks who are really stirred up right now, like they're stirred up this is the year I'm going to get in shape, but it's kind of a vague.

I'm going to get in shape Like I'm just going to say no to dessert more often.

Or I'm going to get up early and we're going to go every day.

But you also know that by Valentine's Day, many of those people will be like man, what happened, I don't know.

Maybe next year, maybe we'll try again then.

Right, you know about this, some of you.

You've done like me.

You've set out to maybe bake something or cook something, and you had a picture in your mind of what that was supposed to look like when it was done.

And you, hey, forget about recipes, you're too talented for that and so you kind of went through the kitchen and you were putting this, that and the other thing in, and now, at the end you know to be gracious, the best thing you could call this thing is nasty, because, though you had a pseudo vision, you had a pseudo goal, you really had no steps to get there that made any doggone sense, and so you ended up with what you ended up with.

And sometimes we end up with that in our lives.

We have a vague sense of what we're kind of going for, but because we weren't specific, weren't particular, we didn't take the time to think it out, to plan it out, to write it down, to get a clear picture of what it was supposed to be, we don't really get anywhere real good, and so this year, right at the beginning of the year, I want to challenge each and every one of us to plan some goals, to make some goals, to make some goals with God, because God's goals are the best goals that we're going to find.

He's got goals for you and he's got goals for you and him, and so I want to tear that apart today.

Now, when we talk about goals, I get excited.

Okay, I'm one of these real productivity eager guys.

I get juiced up about hey, yeah, man, goals, let's get some stuff going.

I know, though, that that's a little jacked up.

I can take that to an extreme.

I can get out of balance with that.

Some of you you don't have my sickness, but you have different things that maybe spin you a different way when it comes to goals.

For some, honestly, it's fear, because you look at goals and you're like goals, and I've had goals and they didn't really go anywhere.

And now I mean, honestly, I just feel like a failure every time someone tells me to plan goals because my goals didn't really work.

Or maybe you're someone who, for you, you have a hard time.

You know goals are good, but you have a hard time with the movement part.

Like you have a hard time motivationally, you have a hard time moving forward.

Now I believe we're talking about a little later.

Part of the reason for that is you don't actually have a crystal clear, awesome why you would do that goal, but nevertheless you still.

You know, for you, man, the whole motivation keeping going is very much a difficult thing For some of us.

You've got this.

I think it's one of the most wicked diseases of all.

It's this thing called perfectionism.

It's this thing I got to get it perfect.

And if I don't get it perfect, what's the point then I ain't even going to do it.

And it shuts down all kinds of stuff, because perfect dear heart is a crazy thing to try to stuff into every one of your goals.

Some might even misuse goals.

You get so excited about them.

This is maybe like me.

You get so excited about goals that you can goal God right out of your goals.

Like, hey, I'm going to get this thing and God, his voice, is way behind you now, like he was interacting at first.

But you just kept going faster and faster and faster, adding more and more and more and more, and now I don't really know what God says about this and we all have this propensity.

Human nature is broken.

There's something broken about us.

So we can even take a good thing and we can be overconfident in ourselves and get off track.

And so, right here, at the beginning, we want to get on the Jesus track and maybe get some tips and some guardrails on how to stay on the right track.

As we move forward, we're going to look in God's Word.

God's Word.

We're going to go to the book of Proverbs.

Now, some of you know this is an entire book, really, written to an adolescent from a father, and the father's saying here's some things that you're going to find.

This is how the world works, this is how it's going to go well for you.

It is a practical book of hacks, so to speak.

But here's the thing that we don't always notice it's a moral book of hacks.

It's describing two moral opposites.

Here's the way of the fool, the way of the person who disregards God's ways, and here's the way of the wise person, or the one who cooperates with the way God made the universe.

And they're going that way.

So let's take a look.

It's right here we're going to spend our time.

Proverbs 21 to 5.

The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage.

But everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.

The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage.

I would like some advantage.

Would anyone like some advantage?

I would like some advantage.

I will go ahead and try to get some, but if I'm going to get some, I'm going to have to be diligent about some things.

For everyone who is hasty, you'd think it would say everyone who's lazy, wouldn't you?

You'd think that would be the opposite.

Everyone who's lazy, you know things aren't going to go that great for them.

They're going to come up in poverty.

And while I think there's probably truth to that, I think it's really insightful that the scripture points out there's a hastiness that causes folks to really miss all that they could have.

Why is that?

I think part of it is because diligent people, man, they want to do it, they want to get, they're thoughtful, they're saying I'm going to spell it out, I'm going to take the time to put it down on paper, I'm going to do my research, I'm going to study, I'm going to go ask so-and-so, I'm going to see different ways I might do this.

I'm going to take my time and I'm going to thoroughly prepare.

Why?

Because when I do, I'm imaging God, the creator.

Do you know?

The creator took his time to make the universe.

He took his time.

In other words, the book of Proverbs is demonstrating to us here's the God way, the way that images God the creation of the universe.

Even God takes his time and thoroughly plans to do stuff and, as you know, he's still working his plan right now.

He's still working a plan he already had.

But the hasty person.

The hasty person says oh, I want it, but I ain't got no time to wait, I got to go.

Come on, man, let's get to it.

Jump on that train, hey, hey, you'll figure it out later.

Man, if there's anything to figure out, you'll probably just have the right instinct.

Just go, just get in there, make some decisions, shake some stuff up.

And make some decisions, shake some stuff up.

And the Proverbs say yeah, that's actually a form of pride, thinking that you're just going to be able to solve every problem, or you would even know every problem that there was going to be up ahead.

And we've all done this.

Man, I've definitely done this.

I'm guessing some of you have done this.

We rushed in, we didn't ask enough questions and man, it was painful in there because we got knocked around in a whole bunch of sharp stuff we did not know was in there, the hasty they underthink it.

And what we want to do today is we want to recognize it's not just that I want to make better decisions, but the more God-honoring, the more moral decision is to say I want to slow things down, I want to make goals, I want to make plans, I want to pray through them, I want to get to God's ends, but I want to go God's way, even if it takes longer than I wish it did, because it's the way God would do it and I don't want the results of doing it any different way.

I don't know if y'all like the movie the Lion King.

I was probably 12 years old when I saw the real Lion King.

I'll just call it that.

It's the one you know, it's the animated one, and I was kind of like I was at the right age where I was like, wow, this is like a cartoon but it's like a profound movie.

I'm like tripping out at this thing and I don't know if you've ever noticed.

So you know that Scar is the villain.

He's the guy who's making things mostly go wrong in the movie, and I would definitely be the case.

Yeah, scar's lazy man, like he's a bad dude.

He's lazy but, as I thought it through, he's also he's got no plan, like you.

Just look at the way he jacks up, if you know the story.

He jacks up the Pride Lands and everything's just like a mess and everything's dying and everything's lost.

And it's because Scar thought just being him would cause things to go well.

He thought there was something resident within him that causes greatness, and yet there wasn't, because old boy had no plan.

Now, obviously, if he would have had a good plan, even with someone with kind of bad character, with a good plan you can still do more positive than someone who's man they're really charismatic and they they're really nice and they have no doggone plan.

And so things fall into poverty.

So let's ask the question how might we increase our advantages in the next year?

How do we increase our advantages?

Well, number one is goals, the command in Proverbs.

There it implies the goal, the plans of the diligent.

It's not just random plans that don't go anywhere, it's plans toward a goal.

The goal is implied in the text there and these ones who are making goals, they're saying it's very important that I aim at something specific.

See what they do.

They get this awesome privilege.

They give themselves to it.

I get to.

I get to just imagine worlds in my head, the same way God does.

I imagine it in my head and I say I like that and I like that and I like that and I'm going to pick some of these and I'm going to try to, with God's help, make it a reality.

I'm going to choose to believe that thing is possible and I'm going to go after it.

In other words, they back up and they say you know, this is fine, this is fine, this is fine, but I can think of something better than this.

I can think of some areas of my life where, like, this is good, that would be better.

Let me get real specific about what that goal is, because there's a chance.

If God's a creative God he's made me in his image I can be creative with him and we can create new things going on on planet earth.

Somebody say amen, isn't that true?

It's right.

So that means they look and they say I could have a healthier family than I have right now.

They say I could have a business that glorifies God I could move forward in my character.

I could imagine what it would be like if I was actually just a more in control person.

Yeah, I can move forward in that.

I will make that one of my goals.

See, they don't give themselves to just inevitability.

They don't just say, well you know, it's just going to go the way they go.

And sometimes people like they pawn it off as something godly.

They're like, well, you know, whatever's going to happen is going to happen.

Dude, that's part of the Bible.

Yes, god is sovereign and whatever does happen, I guess God had a hand in controlling it.

He allowed certain things.

Yes, in that sense it was God's will.

But there's all kinds of stuff that happens on planet Earth that wasn't God's will.

There's all kinds of stuff like rape and murder and suicide.

All those things are not God's will.

And so we can, as creative people say.

I can agree.

There's some things that would be really, really good that I can go after with God's help.

And it's not just that it's going to happen.

It won't happen in the natural, in my real life.

It won't happen if I don't have a goal and step out and go try to get it.

Tony Robbins said this.

He said setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.

But you know, dear heart, that person who refuses to make a goal, they're really, they're just wandering.

They're just wandering around on planet earth.

There's like I don't know where I'm going.

I guess I hope I just get somewhere.

Good, they're going out into the frontier.

There's no cities out there, there's no nothing.

There's like well, I hope I get luck and keep it.

I hope I have some luck and get to take it everywhere that I go, because I'm just hoping things are going to go well.

Well, have you been on earth?

Why do you think that's the way it's going to go?

It doesn't tend to go that way.

All kinds of junk tends to go wrong.

But if we're going to do that, we've got to get very specific.

Goals, need to be specific.

I remember okay.

So Kenzie and I are early on in our marriage we had been through a church split early on.

Then I'm doing all these just honestly, dude, they're just, they're kill your flesh jobs.

I mean they're just.

It's horrible experience to go to work every day and there's lots of different ones.

And Kenzie had this one prayer for me and she would pray every day.

Hey, god, give him a job he loves, that pays our bills and provides insurance.

Now, that wasn't the only thing she prayed, but that was every day.

God, you got to give them this and, guys, it was prayed for several years.

It was specific, it was concrete.

God, this would be better.

Can you get us this?

I'm going to keep asking.

We're going to keep going, we're going to keep submitting to your will.

We're trying to do it with a good attitude, but would you get us this please, this specific thing.

We want this goal.

Well, it eventually came along and it was a great deal and I did love it and it paid the bills and gave us great insurance.

But it was still something that I know as we look back on our story.

My wife got that from God, like that's how we overcame that challenge.

Well, what challenges might you overcome this year or the next year If you just get real concrete, just get real specific?

What is it?

What is it exactly?

What is it?

You need to write down, because until you write it down, I don't know that it's very much of anything.

This is where we got to go to God to get not only our goals but God's goals.

Now, often there's a lot of crossover there, but it says in Ephesians 2.10, for we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus, because that means they've come to Christ, they've trusted him to forgive their sins, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he planned in advance for us to do.

So God says I've already got great goals for you.

I've got great stuff that you're supposed to do.

I need you to cooperate with me, and it's not even just like one area.

It's not like well, god's goal is that I'd be a missionary.

Maybe you know if that's something that's really in your spirit and you have a heart for that kind of thing.

But there's probably a lot of other goals that are way more close to home that you don't need to be afraid of.

You just need to name.

So what about spiritual goals?

What about your level of pursuit of God this year?

What about your level of Bible intake?

What do you want?

What do you want?

What do you want?

What's the goal?

Okay, let's write it down.

What about your relational goals?

For some of you, it's well, you know, I think I need to invest a little bit more in some other relationships.

I've been in a season where I'm just working, working, working.

I'm not really giving enough time to relationships For others of you.

You might be in a season where relationships need to take a little bit of a backseat, like they're actually keeping you from the focus that you need, perhaps.

What do you want in your work?

What's the goal?

What are the goals you want to see God do there?

What are you asking for?

What about your serving life serving in the church or out of the church?

What do you want?

What's the goal?

Now we're talking about how God shapes us and leads us through this, but what do you want?

What about your financial goals?

What exactly do you want to save?

What exactly do you want to invest?

What exactly do you want to do with this?

What about your physical get-in-shape goals?

Okay, what exactly do you want?

If we can't name it, then we can't get to it.

Are we hearing that?

What about your hobby?

Okay, so for years and years, my wife it was hard for us to identify a hobby for her.

I had a hobby when we were on Sabbath.

I'm like I'm going to a movie that helps me relax, I can hide from people and just eat popcorn, and that's my way to just replenish and she's like oh man, she gets about 3 pm on Sabbath.

She's like what the heck man Like?

I'm rested now, let's go, let's do something.

Well, thankfully, very recently she found a hobby called chickens.

She found a hobby called chickens.

Now, it's not a competition, but there's way more chicken poo involved in her hobby than in mine.

But it's not wasted on me, gosh.

We prayed for like 10 years to find this chicken hobby.

We're going to try to enjoy it, okay.

So I don't know what yours is.

Maybe it's just a hobby, maybe it's character, Maybe it's something that you've just got to say.

It's not that I need to do perfect on this, but doggone it.

I could do better.

I could do better this year if I would just really get ahold of it.

Maybe I need to memorize some scripture about it.

Maybe I need to have someone hold me accountable about it.

But whatever it is, there's a little watch out for this, because the goal is really important.

But even more important than the goal is the character goal, because whatever else you get dude like, the big idea here is for us to love God and love people, to speak the truth in love, to have everyone we encounter.

Can I be more loving this year than I was in general to people last year.

Can I experience more of God's heart flowing through me, like those are the best goals and the highest goals?

So, whatever other goal you're getting, god's heart flowing through them, those are the best goals and the highest goals.

So, whatever other goal you're getting, don't just cross the finish line and forget the character thing.

In fact, drop the finish line if it makes you drop the character, because God, if you trust him, he'll find another way to that very same goal, most of the time with your character intact.

Somebody say hallelujah.

So we got to have goals that agree with God's goals, and one of the ways you can do that is by seeking first the kingdom of God.

And one of the ways you do that is, right now you're in here, you're watching, seeking First the kingdom of God.

That's fantastic, but in everyday life, what will that look like in the coming year?

What will you do to prioritize God first?

Maybe a different way to ask it is what is going to compete with God first, because that's really what it is.

It's not that for most of us, it's not that you don't want to seek God first, it's just that there's all these other things that seem to get in the way.

Okay, so, identifying what those are, what do I need to deprioritize so that God can take more of a first place in my life?

Romans 12, two probably what you're going to have to prioritize is more time in God's word.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

That's through God's word.

Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is, his good, pleasing, perfect will.

Well, carter, how do I know God's goals?

Well, one of the ways you do it is you spend time in his word and he begins to point out this is what he does.

That's not a goal.

So drop that.

See this?

Yeah, this is happening in your life.

I notice it.

I don't condemn you because I'm Jesus and I love you, but that's not my will.

We're gonna have to move that out the way so that we can keep going into my will.

That's what happens in God's word.

For some of you, it's just in God's word at all.

I remember when I was laying on my bed at 18 years old and I'm just reading the Bible for five minutes, fall asleep.

But you know, even the five minutes wet my whistle a little bit.

It may be like okay, well, that was good for five minutes.

It made the next day go a little better.

I'm going to try 10 minutes tomorrow and then, as time went by, I need to get a whole hour.

I need to get enough time in the Word for me to get in there and get cleansed in my soul, in my spirit and in my.

So I feel like I can not just be dragging through life every day.

I don't know what it is for you.

Maybe you need to take a class.

Maybe there's some classes here at Fierce that you need to take.

Whatever it is, what does it look like to seek first?

Somebody say first, first, because, dude, that's like a promise, I'll take care of all the rest.

God says, if you seek him first, if you don't, he's like well, wow, good luck.

I'm not promising anything about that.

What can help?

Here's some things that can help this process.

You know this.

You could buy 20 books on goal setting and you would read all this.

So none of this is new information, but just to stir us up here, what can help is if we're really going to get clarity on goals, guys, we've got to get at least a little bit of time away from the norm and away from the day.

We've got to get quiet.

We've got to get in a place where we're not carrying around all these responsibilities all the time.

It doesn't mean that you drop the responsibilities, it just means you get in a context where you're not having to manage multiple things and be inspired.

Okay, so when my kids were real little, I was sick and I had to stay home with them, but there were times when I just needed to pray Like God, I need to get quiet with you, and there's no place in this little apartment to go to get quiet.

And so I'd lay them on the floor.

Okay, I put on Dora the Explorer and I'd put in my little orange earplugs Now, some of you know you can still hear through those.

So I'm like, okay, I don't want them to get hurt, I don't want them in danger, I'm going to listen, but they're quiet enough that I can tune out most of the Dora noise.

And that's what I needed to do to survive.

Lord, let's get your goals for the day.

And I just lay on the floor.

Lord, talk to me about this.

Well, it wasn't perfect.

It wasn't a hotel room.

It wasn't someplace that, oh, this is so quiet.

It wasn't a retreat center, it was a doggone apartment living room floor that, okay, find a way, find a way to get some kind of quiet so that you can listen for and look for some goals.

And it does.

It takes time.

And it takes time not just like, oh, it takes two hours.

I mean, it takes a period of time.

It takes doing it and doing it.

Sometimes we're like, all right, god, you got 20 minutes, let's hear something.

Go.

And God's like that's just not how I do it, man.

I speak slow over seasons.

So you keep coming back every day and slowly you're going to see that I reveal stuff.

And slowly you're going to see that I reveal stuff.

Once a year I just did this.

We just went up to my in-laws' cabin house in the woods up in the north woods of Wisconsin and every year I take that time.

I drop all the stuff.

You guys know there was video and other preachers here and I'm just dropping everything.

So I can say, god, let's talk about the goals for next year, let's talk about what went well this year and what is going to hopefully go well next year.

But let's talk about it and, guys, it's a long-term thing, it takes I don't just just.

It's not just one session, it's multiple sessions.

And here's another thing that might help Some of you might be you might love journaling.

If you love journaling, great, good job.

For me, journaling is the wrong word.

It's the idea, because I relate it too much to writing in my diary and I don't have a diary and I'm just not a diary guy.

Okay, so I have a record of things God has said to me.

That's what I have, that's really what it is, it's just so.

In other words, it's not three paragraphs.

What am I going to do with three paragraphs?

I'm just not that good a writer to ever go back and read that.

Okay, but if I have three bullet points I think God spoke this to me, you know, on Thursday the 23rd If I have that down, then if I have four sessions of that and I'm looking at the whole thing, I'm like doggone.

Well, god is talking, he's saying it here, and then he said it again a month later, and then he said it again a month later and then he mentioned this thing.

You see how that works.

So a record of what God says is way more helpful than like you don't have to write an autobiography for God.

Now you can like.

If that's what you're doing, I'm just saying what is the goal?

The goal is to hear from him, hear what he wants and that, in my view, can just be a whole lot simpler and just writing it down.

Wherever.

Kenzie and I do this, even as a married couple, so like once a year, and I want to recommend if you're married, you're really writing one story.

If you're married in Jesus' name, he would have you to write one story.

You're two different lives, but you're not writing two different stories.

And that means you got to get together and talk about the story.

And so we get together, we go to Lake Geneva, we sit on the pier and we just dream and goal.

We just talk about goals.

Hey man, wouldn't it be cool if Now we don't do a lot of planning?

Because planning will jack it up, dude, don't plan, plan will kill your faith sometimes, because you're like, oh gosh, I don't know how the heck we're going to do this Now.

You're discouraged.

Now forget that.

Have faith right now.

Just throw it out there.

What would be better than this?

What would be cool?

What would be exciting.

What could we possibly do?

That's the whole session of just goal setting.

It's dreaming and it's releasing faith instead of shutting it down.

And one superpower that you can add is the why.

Why, why is this goal meaningful For some of us?

We have a hard time with goals because we don't have a sharp enough why.

Why should you do that?

Why should you make that better?

You know, one of the reasons people come in here and they serve at Fierce in all kinds of different capacities is because they've tasted the why of.

Because people matter to God, and if I don't do it, it may be that nobody does it and that soul may be affected.

It may be that that soul doesn't come to know Jesus Christ as a forgiver and a lover the way that I have, and they allow it to affect them.

It's a why I need to do this, because somebody did this for me.

I don't want to do it, I'm tired, but I'm going to do it because it's a good.

Why, what, why, can you add?

So I mean, that's a big deal.

That's one of the reasons we do this here is because we care about people.

You might think I'm a goofball, but I feel like the Lord gave this to me and so I'm just going to share it with you.

It doesn't really matter if you don't believe it.

Like, just listen to the point of it.

Twice in my life I feel like the Lord has shown me hell, Opened up a vision, showed me what hell was like.

I guess I got to tell you.

Vision showed me what hell was like.

I guess I got to tell you you just never look at death the same.

Like it's just different now and every day is different.

Like the stakes are different.

Because now I'm thinking, wow, yeah, it's that vague, abstract fire.

Like that's not what he showed me, but he showed me a place I never want anyone to go, and so that's a really compelling why.

So, whatever you're doing, whatever the goal is, what's the why?

And can you crystallize that and can you raise the stakes?

And, guys, it doesn't need to be dramatic necessarily.

You know what I mean.

Like some of the whys are well, I want to be able to run up the stairs without running out of breath so that I live longer.

Like that's a good why, you know.

Or I want to be able to take my family on a vacation, so I'm going to save.

That's a good why?

So we can go on the vacation, like those are great whys.

It doesn't always have to be dramatic, but let it be enough to move.

You Make it that significant, and that's why talking in council might help that process.

So we had goals, we got plans Proverbs 16, 9,.

We should make plans.

Gp we're on GP.

Gps we're on GP plans.

We should make plans.

Counting on God to direct us.

We should make plans.

Now it's time to get specific about the plan, though.

Okay, so we got full of faith and we talked about what could be.

Well, how would we actually do it, though?

Okay, let's come up with three or four theories.

What would we do?

What would we possibly try to do?

Given what we know now, we might not know a lot.

There might be a lot to find out.

Part of the plan might be go find out all the stuff you don't know, so you can actually make a good plan.

But what could you come up with?

What could we possibly do?

When Kenzie and I were just starting to have kids kids we started talking about homeschool.

Now, at that time, homeschool was kind of weird.

It was like churning your own butter.

It was a little bit weird.

People that homeschooled.

You know they're like okay, I don't know if that's right, you know, but we had had such an experience in our own high school experience that was so full of like wow, the peer pressure really pushed us in some directions.

I wish we would have never gone.

As for our kids, we don't want to protect them entirely from the world, but we want to walk them into the world more slowly with more wisdom in their brains.

I'm not saying that was right for everybody.

I'm not saying there's not supposed to be evangelists in public schools.

I'm just saying for us, we knew, hey, this is something that's so important to us and our why is so important that they think differently than we did as teenagers.

We're going to give ourselves this Now to make a plan.

We didn't know anything.

And so Kenzie went to different gals who were homeschooling hey, can I just sit in and watch what you do?

Show me what you got.

Show me what the thing is.

Show me the curriculum you're using.

Show me how you do this.

Now, she was already a trained elementary ed teacher, but it was still helpful for her to get a new vision of how do you do this, and I see less good and more good versions of this.

I think I'm going to take a shot at that.

Another one more recently, kenzie has gone back to get her master's in nursing, and as we were getting into that, I was about to finish my doctorate and we're in a season of life where we're just having kids fly away, and so there's just a lot of.

It may not sound like a lot to you, but there's a lot of intense pressure on every side to get stuff right.

Well, not sound like a lot to you, but there's a lot of intense pressure on every side to get stuff right.

Well, we needed to sit down and make a long-term plan.

That's a little bit complex.

How are we going to do this?

That's the question how, how are you going to do it?

That takes a lot of prayer and a lot of counsel, but there's also ones that we didn't do so well.

Enter again the chickens and the chickens.

Okay, it's the day before my birthday, it's August 24th.

I come back home, mind you, it's about to be fall and then winter.

I come back home and there are these living creatures, these little chicks, in a box in my living room and I'm like, wow, I don't feel like a lot of forethought was given to what comes next.

I feel like it's a lot of you know, hey, there'll be eggs soon and that'll be great, yeah, well, there might.

But you might understand at this point, because we didn't have a really great written plan, there's been all kinds of chaos the symphony of chaos, as a matter of fact that has rolled up in the house and in the yard and in other people's yards, because we didn't really have a plan for the chickens.

Okay, so the plan can bite you Now.

Thankfully it's only chickens, thankfully we didn't start with a cow.

But we learned a lot Good reminder, a little spanking, take the time to plan.

So, guys, we got a plan.

One of the things we want to do when we plan is we want to get feedback.

Feedback is our friend.

And I want to speak to the perfectionists here for a second.

I'm so glad I hope that you're glad that Jesus doesn't demand that you start perfect.

Do you see how he works?

He's like you failed 25 times on the first day, like, and then you do that for like 17 years, and then it's 24 times, and then it's 23 times, but we keep messing up and Jesus says it's okay, you don't have to be perfect.

Just keep practicing, just keep practicing, just keep, just keep at it.

Just don't give up, just don't walk away, don't take the ball and go home.

Just keep improving little by little, day by day.

Just keep going, just get feedback, just make little tweaks, just go slow, and you'll be surprised how far we can get.

When I was a kid, my mom read to me the Tortoise and the Hare.

How many know about that story?

Okay, it's a little cartoon story, a little fable, and if you don't know it, what happens is there's this race between a tortoise and a really fast hare, which is a bunny of sorts, and so these two are in a race and of course, the tortoise is slow man, he's going really slow, and the bunny hare is super fast.

And it's not only fast but it's kind of arrogant, it's kind of prideful.

It's like watch this, I'm just going to go.

And so it goes and it gets tired and it ends up like I got plenty of time, I'm just gonna take a nap right here by the tree before I even get to the finish line, that tortoise ain't coming.

It's gonna be a long time before I'd worry about him.

Well, as you might expect, the tortoise ends up winning, crossing the finish line because he just took it slow, but he kept going.

God has used that story in my life so many times, but one in particular was early on in ministry.

I just did some, I just made some immature mistakes, just some dumb things that you just wouldn't do if you were a little bit smarter, a little bit older.

I just did it and one of the things that I feel like the Lord brought that fable back to my mind, but he gave me this word about it.

He said I want you to remember that the shortcut that you see is really the long way, and the long way is actually the shortcut, meaning don't start with the short way in mind.

Don't try to get there fast, don't try to just push yourself forward.

Don't make everybody know how great you are.

Don't try to just all right, I'm going to skip some steps because I'm so talented I should be ahead.

No, no, no, slow way down.

Take the long way, just get good, just take the time to get good, and you're going to find things are going to go a whole lot faster than they feel like eventually because you took the time to go slow, but it was actually a shortcut.

I wonder how many of us today, as you think about some of your goals, there's a version where you're just like, well, what's the fastest way we can do it?

Hey, if there's a way to do it fast, do it.

But if it's one of these things that involves probably character and a little bit of humility and taking the time to actually get good at something instead of just kind of be good at something, I want to encourage you take the long way, because it's actually the shortcut.

It's actually the shortcut.

What if I mess up?

What if I get it wrong?

What if you blow it?

What if you make the goal and you make the plan and it's perfect and people applaud, they're like, yes, great plan.

And you still jack it up.

What happens then?

I got some fantastic news for you.

Psalm 138 says this the Lord will work out his plans for my life.

The Lord will work out.

The Lord will work it out.

The Lord will work out his plan.

So your plan might be the right plan, it might be the wrong plan, it might be 30% the right plan.

Whatever it is, he'll work out his plan for your life.

He already has a plan.

He's going to work it out for your life because he's so intentional and trustworthy like that.

Did you know that you can trust God's heart?

It actually honors him when we trust his heart and faith.

See, when we look at, when we're not afraid to make goals and make plans because we're like I trust that God is a benevolent God.

God is a good God.

God wants to bless me.

He might even use some of my plans to glorify his own name on planet earth.

That might be what happens.

So I'm going to trust him that even if I get it wrong, I can't stop God from getting it right.

But I'm not going to walk in unbelief and refuse to make any goals and refuse to make any plans because, well you know, I'm not sure what God's going to do.

God will be faithful to carry out his plan.

That's what he'll do, no matter what.

And if you get some of it wrong, he'll teach you, he'll train you, he might even give you occasional little spanking if necessary.

But God will bring about what's supposed to come about and if you get it wrong, he'll come get you.

This is what he did with Peter, don't you remember?

Peter was like the leader of the disciples and completely denounces Jesus.

Swears about it in front of this little girl.

I don't know him.

And then Jesus is resurrected from the dead and you'll notice that Peter didn't like oh, I got to figure out a way to get back in Jesus' good graces.

No, peter went fishing.

He was eating some fish.

Jesus shows up and says okay, take another bite, and then come over here.

I want to talk to you, I want to restore you, want to restore you.

Notice, notice, jesus went and got Peter.

Peter didn't need to go get Jesus.

Jesus came after him.

Yo, jesus will always, always, always, always, always come after you.

He'll always come after you.

He'll always come looking.

He'll always be like I know you jacked it up, come on, come on, let's get back in the program Now.

Look, he didn't tell Peter all right, peter, well, let's talk about how you're going to fix what you did wrong.

Let's talk about how you're going to reverse it.

Let's talk about how you get it right now, like, erase that mistake.

He didn't say that at all.

He said well, you got it wrong.

Okay, now get on the right track again.

Here's what I want you to do, peter.

Here's don't worry about that, just move the doggone thing forward.

Jesus will come get you and he'll come get you every time.

And that leads us to how does he do it?

Well, mostly the shortcut of him doing it is prayer, g-p.

There's another P, double P S is next week, g-p, prayer it's prayer.

Prayer is how God does stuff.

Prayer is how God gets in the work.

Prayer is how he gets us to understand what it is he's trying to do.

That's what he does with prayer.

Prayer is how he crystallizes for us.

We had our theories of what God's will is, and prayer is where he shows us what it actually is.

Prayer is Batman and Robin coming together.

See, before, when you just had the plan, you were kind of like Robin off on your own, and I mean, no, robin just isn't very exciting without Batman, he's just not.

But once you get them together now they're a dynamic duo.

And God says once you pray now we're working some stuff.

Man, now we're working together, now we can get some stuff done on planet earth.

I'm not a chef Some of you might be, but I know even so that if you marinate meat for 20 minutes versus marinate meat for 20 days, you're just going to have a different flip.

Maybe not 20 days, two days.

Kenzie looked at me.

She's like no, don't do that.

Two days the flavor is going to get deeper.

There's going to be a new depth of what you have there at the end.

You know this If you've got like a glass of water that's full of a whole bunch of sediment, you just leave it there for a while.

The chaos begins to just settle and sometimes we're hearing a bunch of stuff.

We're like I want this to happen, I want this to happen, but there's so much chaos you can't hear, so take some time to pray.

I want to show you one more thing.

This is an exercise that I do where I pray over my projects, the things that I feel like might be God for me.

Let's see this image.

These are real.

Okay, cool projects to try.

It sounds like it belongs in my 1988 Trapper Keeper, but that's really what it is.

I really have an Evernote notebook called Cool Projects to Try and then Active Projects.

Now look at the right Active Projects.

Okay, so that means there's stuff already going on.

Yeah, I'm working on the 15-year vision fast.

I'm doing the parenting class.

That's already happening.

I can't just keep adding, and I want to remember that when I'm in prayer.

Okay, god, you've already given me this.

I've got to drop something if I want to add on some stuff, right?

So then I'm praying okay, is it time to buy a kent's day cow?

Well, the chickens have taught us there might need to be a season of planning.

But I'm asking okay, god, I feel like you want me to create this Bible course.

What does that look like?

How would that work?

What's the when?

What do I have to be done with in order to start that?

Guys you, all of your current things that are on your agenda, and then take the time Go slow.

God speaks slow.

You've got time left, god.

What are the things?

I'll be really honest with you guys, and I love it.

I always want feedback.

I always want people to come up and, hey, tell me what you think.

People come up to me with ideas all the time and they're like here's what we should do.

Let's do this.

I'm like great, that is a good idea.

Just so you know, I'm not going to run away and get busy on that because I've got this whole list of cool projects to try.

It's going to get in the queue and we'll talk to Jesus about it.

We'll see if it's the right time.

But just understand.

There's already a hundred things going on and so I've got to see if this is important enough to replace one of the active projects.

I still want to hear it because we want to bring it further and make it better.

I just want people to understand you're going to have to remove something, otherwise you're just going to keep adding goals and you're going to lose your mind because you can't just keep doing that.

How many think this is a fantastic way to start 2025, hearing about goals with Jesus?

Guys, we've got a choice.

Right now we can decide okay, I'm going to back off in fear or I'm going to say, god, you're good enough that I can make some goals and not get them all perfect.

I can make some plans and not get them all perfect, and I can pray it through and see what, in my imperfection, I can feel like maybe you're on, because I know that my wisdom alone is not enough.

That's why I've got Jesus, because he brings the wonderful counselor into my life.

God, I know that, and so I can either recoil in fear or I can, with Jesus' help, let's do what we can do this year to blow up a little bit of hell, to bring a lot more advantages into our lives and trust that God knows what he's doing.

Amen, let's pray.

Trust that God knows what he's doing, amen, let's pray.

Hey God, I would love to just start by committing this year to you For all of us.

Maybe we haven't even been following you yet, but we're deciding right now.

I want Jesus to come into my heart.

I want him to save me from my sin and I want to do this with him this year instead of just on my own.

Father, if that's you, we just want to declare right now would you forgive us of our sin?

We repent and ask for your forgiveness.

We pray that you'd enter in by the Holy Spirit and teach us to walk with you.

We thank you that you've got your own good plan for our life and, no matter what we do, you're going to bring it about.

Because we trust you, we place our hand in Jesus' right now, and God for all of us.

We take 2025 and we say this is consecrated in the name of God.

Lord, it's your year.

May you do whatever you see is right and good, and we pray for favor, we pray for power, we pray for the right goals, we pray for the right plans, we pray for the right people in our lives to do the things that you're asking of us, calling us to, and, god, we pray for fresh deposits of faith that you are good, that we don't have to fear making goals or plans, that you're on our side and you've got our back and if we get lost, you'll come and find us, give us a bold, aggressive, conquering faith In Jesus' name, amen.

Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.

If you don't have a home church and you're looking for Jesus' name, amen.

Development-related content don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from.

Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry.

It's because of you that this is possible.

You can click on the link in the description to give now, or visit fiercechurch for more information.

If you enjoyed this podcast, why not subscribe?

Share it with your friends, click on the share button, take a screenshot and share it on social media or wherever you would share such things.

Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it.

Don't give up.

Hang on to Jesus.

He won't let go of you.

Jesus loves you so much and we love you.

I hope someday we get to meet in person.

Thanks again for listening.