What will you be doing 10 years from now?
That was the question Matt and I posed to a group of young married couples who had been meeting in our home for a few weeks before Christmas. By the end of the year 2020, what do you want to be doing? Where do you want to be? What are your long range goals?
You know what happens don’t you, when you ask a thought provoking question of someone else? You have to answer it yourself. But before I could reflect on my life and set some long range goals for the next ten years, I first had to choke a little bit and work to steady my breathing. In the year 2020 our baby will be getting his drivers license. We’re likely to have three kids with college bills. Our oldest son will be 23. Good grief, he could be married by then and (gasp) I could be a grandmother!
In ten years.
It’s kind of exciting to think about. And maybe just a little bit scary. And don’t even talk to me about car insurance costs for four teenage/early twenties male drivers.
(breathe…breathe…)
Of course none of us knows exactly what God has in mind for each of us in the future. We can only dream and pray and try to listen to God’s calling the best that we can.
But here’s the deal: If we don’t dream; If we don’t seek God’s plan for our lives; If we don’t search within ourselves and find the gifts God has given us so that we can put them to good use; If we don’t humbly seek God’s direction for our future and intentionally plan to carry out His vision for our families…we’ll just all float along not accomplishing much for God’s kingdom.
Then we’ll look back on our lives ten years from now and wonder why we never got much done. We’ll wonder what happened to the last decade. We’ll wonder why life happened around us and we’re still doing the same ol’ thing we’ve always been doing without really getting anywhere.
There’s something very empowering about looking ahead and picturing yourself doing and being exactly what you aspire to do and to be. I don’t care if you’re in your twenties or eighties…we can all continue to improve our walk with God and set goals for ourselves so that we can do His will on earth as it is being done in Heaven.
That’s what we’re here to do right?
So here’s what I recommend that you do. Take some time to reflect on who God wants you to be and how He can get you to that point during the next ten years. For yourself, for your family, for your church. Write it down. Dream big. But be realistic.
Pray.
Then, break the goals down a little bit. If you want to be at X in 10 years, you’ll need to do a…b… c… in order to get there. Break down each of those objectives into workable time frames between now and 2020. Then, break those steps down into months and weeks and well…start working tomorrow to make something happen.
2020 Vision. What do you see in your future?