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My Secret For Achieving The Best Year Yet!

Posted on January 16, 2008
Filed Under Organisation, Your Family, Your Health, Your Purpose, Home Schooling, Your Faith, Your Finances |

I hope that the Christmas and New Year break has been a relaxing and a rewarding one, spending time with family. Apparently we have had the driest summer on record! The grass is proof of that – brown as.

Today, I want to stir you up to expect and dream for this coming year. We all have dreams, some of them are unspoken, some have been discarded, and some we are yet to imagine. Without a dream or vision, we are just getting through life; basically surviving. God doesn’t want us to JUST survive – He wants us to dream and move towards an aim or goal in our lives.

What are your aims this year?
What would you like to achieve?

I usually have loads of aims and things that I would like to do. BUT I never seemed to get around to doing anything or maybe life just got in the way. Every year I would sit down and review my past efforts and become very discouraged. What is the point in even writing down goals? I never seem to achieve even a portion of what I dream about.

Over the past few weeks, I have spent quite a lot of time talking to God about this. He has shown me a SECRET to achieving my dreams. I will get to the SECRET in a moment. But first I want to share with you what I was doing wrong. God revealed it to me while I was reading James 1 v 6b - 8

For the one who wavers (hesitates, doubts) is like the billowing surge out at sea that is blown hither and thither and tossed by the wind. For truly, let not such a person imagine that he will receive anything [he asks for] from the Lord,[For being as he is] a man of two minds (hesitating, dubious, irresolute), [he is] unstable and unreliable and uncertain about everything [he thinks, feels, decides]. Amp

Two words literally jumped off the page. “Dubious” and “irresolute”. They aren’t words that we use freely these days are they? So I took the time to look them up-

Dubious: hesitant, uncertain, doubtful, sceptical, unsure, undecided, irresolute.

Was I sceptical about achieving my goals? Was I so full of doubt that I didn’t really believe that I had it in me to gain the victory? It started to look like sabotage – I was sabotaging my own dreams! Let’s move onto the word “irresolute” -

Irresolute: unable to make up your mind.

Well, I thought – that is strange, I thought I HAD decided to accomplish certain things. Hadn’t I wanted to lose weight? Hadn’t I wanted to write? Hadn’t I wanted a closer relationship with my husband? Wasn’t that making up your mind? But this was only half the meaning – the negative side. I then looked up the flip side –the meaning of resolute.

Resolute: unshakeable, unwavering, unswerving, determined, single-minded, firm

Ah! Now the lights were turning on! If I had made up my mind on a goal or made a decision to do something then I would have been UNSHAKEABLE – nothing could change MY course of action. I would be so determined to achieve -it would be inconceivable that I would fail. If my “mind was made up” then I wouldn’t be in “two minds” that James is talking about. Being in “two minds” is disastrous. You can not achieve anything in “two minds”.

Now here comes the secret – this is what God wanted me to know, the reason why some people achieve and others don’t. It comes down to …DETERMINATION!

Wishing and wanting just doesn’t cut it. Desires and dreams just stay a “what if?”, when there is no determination behind it. Here’s a great verse which has great imagery –

“Never lag in zeal and in earnest endeavour, be aglow and burning with the Spirit serving the Lord” Romans 12 v 11

That sure sound determined to me! Okay so what does “determine” mean?

Determine: to settle ultimately, to fix on, to settle or establish, and to resolve

Now there is no argument here, this meaning is pretty clear – to determine is to SETTLE FOR GOOD on what you want to have happen. That is determination! You have made up your mind to inject love into your marriage relationship and nothing is going to get in your way. That is determination! You have resolved that you will lose x amount of pounds this year and that chocolate calling your name is not going to get you. (Now for some reason, yummy fattening food like chocolate is my biggest downfall and I can get determined about most things …but losing weight and giving up chocolate is hard but with God’s help nothing, NOTHING is impossible – watch this space!)

You (and I – I so need this as well) MUST get so determined about the dreams that God has placed in your heart that you decide once and for all and then set your mind on it – you get so fixated on making it happen. God talks about this in Colossians 3 v 2 “Set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things) not on the things that are on earth”

You are not in this alone, God has promised to help you and inject determination into your hearts and strengthen your minds so they can be set upon achieving your goals.

So stir yourself up, sharpen those pencils, and write down those dreams and goals. Pick ONE DREAM, ONE GOAL and become completely determined to achieve it!

To give you a head start,YOU are INVITED to type in your one DREAM or GOAL in the comments area below. I would LOVE to hear what you all are aiming for! Let’s encourage each other towards achieving at least one dream or goal in 2008.

Here’s to the best year ever!
Rachel Larkin

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