Goal Setting Part 4
"Look, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, and he will prepare your way before you."
Luke 7:27
"Look, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, and he will prepare your way before you."
Luke 7:27
We are now almost a month into the New Year and January 2014
will soon become a memory. How are you
doing on your goal-setting thus far?
Have you written them down and posted them somewhere that catches your
eyes and your attention several times a day? Are you goals high enough to
challenge you yet realistic enough to accomplish? Are you setting yourself up to live your life
as if you are methodically navigating a labyrinth or are you wandering about
confused as if in a maze? Are you choosing the path towards life? You decide.
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| Along with my bestie, I walked the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, CA. |
“A labyrinth is a single path or unicursal tool for personal, psychological and spiritual transformation. Labyrinths are thought to enhance right brain activity.” As you enter the labyrinth you do so at the “mouth” as you follow the path around towards your goal, which is the center. Once you have reached the center you are encouraged to relax, breath, meditate, pray, and think about your life. The path is clearly marked for you and you can also see exactly where the boundaries are so as not to step off of the path. It is a safe place. Once you reach the center you might sit for a while as you take time for personal reflection. I like to sit and pray. After several minutes you start the methodical journey back out to where you came from: back to your life with all of it’s joys and challenges.
Here’s the good news about a labyrinth: It is a place of health where you can gain focus and power to face anything. The goal is to reconnect with God’s grace at the center as you center yourself in gratitude for all He has done for you. Once you come to the center and back to Him, you will find new peace and hope for the future. Your goals will become clear and you will know where to go from wherever you find yourself. God’s way is the narrow path yet it is a clear path and the way to life. He doesn’t play games or trick you by making you run into dead-ends, although sometimes we can do this to ourselves.
On the other hand, “a maze is a puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. The pathways and walls in a maze are fixed, and puzzles in which the walls and paths can change during the game. Technically the maze is distinguished from the labyrinth, which has a single through-route with twists and turns but without branches. The maze is designed to be difficult to navigate.”
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| (I prefer the peaceful way of the labyrinth over this...thank you!) |
If you are in a constant state of twisting and turning while bumping into walls or taking paths that lead to nowhere, I encourage you do everything you can to avoid living your life as if in a maze. Although life can sometimes be hard to navigate, if we design our own roadmap by intentionally writing out what we want for our lives, we find it a lot easier to stay on the path towards health and a productive life.
Be intentional and adopt the way of the labyrinth, moving towards your goals and towards God.
Join me on February 15th at 6pm Pacific time for “The Call” which is a time to gather together over the telephone for prayer and support. The Call is held at the same time and day each month. This month we will finish our teaching and discussion on goal-setting and talk about the pit-falls when things don’t always go as smoothly as we would like. Dial 530-881-1300 and key-in 642848# Feel free to invite others who might need some mid-month encouragement. If you can’t join us you can write to me for an MP3 copy of our time together.
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