God on the Go: New Goals

Goals. Do you like making them? This week we’re talking about the importance of setting goals and working towards them, using the story in the Bible of Nehemiah. We have a great tip that will help you set goals!

What’s New!

Monday Bible Story:

• Nehemiah with a goal of rebuilding the temple.

Tuesday Key Verse:

• Proverbs 21:5 Careful planning puts you ahead in the long run; hurry and scurry puts you further behind.

Wednesday Prayer:

• God, thank you for helping me set new goals. Help me be wise about my plans. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Thursday Question:

• What is a goal you have for yourself this year?

Friday Fun Fact:

• Q: What’s one of the best ways to help you get to your goal?
• A: Write it down!

 Special thanks to George Fox University for sponsoring the God on the Go Podcast!

Show Notes:

To get this week’s episode and daily text prompts, text the word Go to 89419. If you are in Canada, text GodOntheGo to 866-729-1065

Transcription:

What do you want to do this year? Do you have some things you’d like to learn? Do you want to try out for your school play? Do you want to learn how to play the flute? Are you ready to crush your spelling list? Do you have a goal of being a better friend, or of making your bed every morning, or keeping your backpack cleaned out? I’m Julie Lyles Carr, and this is God on the Go part of the Purposely Podcast Network.

Anytime we want to get better at something or learn something new or move ahead in some way, that’s a goal. One year I had a goal to keep my locker clean instead of letting it get super messy like I had done the year before. It absolutely looked like a garbage can the year before, and so I wanted to do better. But I have to be honest, I didn’t do such a good job of reaching that goal.

There’s a guy I know about who had a crazy goal that he set. He wanted to rebuild a city wall that had gotten destroyed during a war. Now, this guy didn’t have much money. He didn’t really have any of the equipment he needed. He didn’t have any time off from his regular job to try to reach this goal, and he didn’t even know if any of his friends would help him, and to reach this goal. He was definitely going to need his friends. Now, this isn’t a guy from today. This is someone you can read about in the Bible. His name is Nehemiah, and he lived about 2,500 years ago. See, setting goals and trying to reach them, that’s been around for as long as people have been around. God puts something in us that we want to create and to try and improve. Those are great things. Sometimes we have goals that are the same kinds of things God wants for us. Sometimes we can set goals that God knows aren’t the best for us. The goals God blesses still have challenges along the way, but he’s with us every step. For that guy, Nehemiah I was telling you about, his big goal was that he wanted to rebuild the city wall around Jerusalem, which was the most important city in the Bible. Now, Nehemiah lived in a country called Persia, which was a long way away from Jerusalem. His family had been taken to Persia as slaves, and he probably had never even been to Jerusalem. But when he heard about the city walls and how they were damaged, and it was leaving the people who remained in Jerusalem just at the mercy of all of their enemies, he wanted to do something that would honor God and the city that meant so much to his people.

So here he was with this big goal and not a lot of ways to make it happen, but Nehemiah was brave and he also knew how to ask for help. He talked to the king, he served, and he got permission to go to Jerusalem to start this work. Not only did the king let him go, the king also made Nehemiah the leader of Jerusalem and gave him a bunch of supplies to use to help rebuild. Nehemiah was able to find people to help him, and they had to fight back against enemies who didn’t want this part of Jerusalem rebuilt. Like I said, sometimes a really good goal means you’re also going to face some really big challenges. Through it all, Nehemiah worked hard to meet his goal. Proverbs 21:5 says,

Careful planning puts you ahead in the long run; hurry and scurry puts you further behind.

When you set a new goal for yourself, plan for it. If you want to make a better grade this year, ask for help. If you want to make the team, tell your mom and dad about your goal and ask them where you can do better. And guess what scientists say is one of the best things you can do to reach a goal? Write it down. When we write down what we plan to do, God made our brains to really pay attention to that stuff. Our brains are like, “h, this is something we’re really going to work toward when we write it down.” And think about this. When Nehemiah went to rebuild the walls, he had with him letters from the king, the king wrote down all of Nehemiah’s goal and all that Nehemiah planned to do. How cool is that? Whatever your goals are for this year, I’m cheering you on.

Make one of your goals for this year, making the minutes matter with God on the Go. Text the word go, that’s GO to 89419, and we’ll send some great stuff your way. Discussion, questions, memory verse, all kinds of stuff from today’s podcast, and other goodies to help you with your goals. God on the Go is sponsored by George Fox University, where each student will be known personally, academically, and spiritually. I’ll see you next week.