2020 – Breathe. Pray. Repeat.

Setting the Right Goals in 2021

2021 is finally here, and many are already starting on those special resolutions they’ve set for themselves, but before you start on your new resolutions, here’s something you might consider:

Don’t.

Seriously, don’t make any resolutions. Instead, make goals, and instead of making goals that are glorified resolutions, strive to set goals for yourself that are practical and have a real purpose to them.

For example, I once set a goal at the beginning of a new year to exercise to a specific workout video every day. I did it for about a week, and then I began skipping a few days here and there. Those few days turned into an entire week, and before January was over, I’d completely abandoned my new year challenge.

“Well, that’s just you,” you might say.

Maybe that is just me. Maybe I have a deeper passion for delicious food than taking up running marathons, but maybe many of us have the habit of setting goals for ourselves out of flimsy desires that are simply unrealistic.

But I learned some time ago to choose a specific goal for which I had a passion and burden, and I developed a few steps to achieving success in completing said goal.

1. Start small.

Last year, I decided to study the Word more, so rather than commit right away to analyzing Isaiah or Revelations in depth, I chose one of my favorite shorter books—Esther. I knew it would be a book that I could easily commit to studying due to its short length (only 10 chapters), and I chose to read a few verses each day and study those verses only.

2. Set time aside each day.

I made a schedule to read Esther over the course of several weeks and estimated the time I would spend each day reading the verses and then set time aside to study each verse individually, taking notes and using Bible study tools to help me.

At the same time, I’d made a goal to pray more, so I set a realistic time to pray each morning. The set time sometimes changed, depending on the day of the week, but I knew that specifically writing down my goals and the time I would set aside for them would help me achieve them.

3. Gradually increase time allotted each day and effort necessary to complete the goal.

After about a week, I gradually began to increase how much time I spent in prayer. Sometimes, it was by five minutes or by ten minutes or by fifteen minutes, but the more I prayed and focused on prayer, the easier I found it was to increase my prayer time.

4. Approach with firm resolve and understanding—don’t quit.

I didn’t always pray as long as I needed to or study for as long as I could have, but I didn’t give up. Why? Why didn’t I give up the same way I gave up exercising to that new exercise video after a couple of weeks? Because I didn’t set a goal that was only linked to fleeting desires or insecurities. Instead, I made sure to set a goal linked to my own identity and lifestyle. I am a child of God, an Apostolic Pentecostal, and as such, I seek a stronger relationship with God through prayer and studying His Word. I understood the value of the goal I set.

When I failed one day to meet my goal, I began again the next day with a resolve to try harder and do better. By the end of the year, I’d managed to read through and study more of the Word, such as the book of Genesis and themes like comfort. Because I didn’t give up or revert to doing the “same-ole-same-ole,” I was able to reach a breakthrough in my prayers and spend more time in His Presence, getting closer to Him than I’d been before.

Don’t underestimate the importance of writing down your goals and setting schedules.

I’m a visual person, anyway, so putting down my goals and plans on paper helps solidify them in my mind and helps me take those goals seriously.

Your goals don’t have to be big, but your passion does.

If you don’t truly, really, deeply care for achieving your goals deep, deep down, then chances are you’ll give up on them.

After 2020 let down many people, I believe it’s acceptable to set small, realistic goals for 2021—something simple like spending more quality time with loved ones or taking a short vacation (or even staycation) that was cancelled last year due to lockdowns.

2021 will certainly be better than 2020 if we set that as a goal for ourselves and charge forward in faith and with purpose. We have an entire year ahead of us, and we can’t control what happens outside of ourselves. But we can control our determination.

Let’s do this, 2021!

The Takeaway

At the end of a year, I always find myself reflecting on how I may have changed over the past twelve months and the overarching lesson I may have learned. In 2019, I was anxious for the year to end. 2019 didn’t see my personal life growing the way I had hoped it would. My family endured emotional struggles, and it was largely an uneventful year. At the beginning of 2020, I was hopeful. In an early Facebook post, I wrote that I was “claiming 2020 as a year of growth, positive change, restoration, fulfillment, and joy.”

Well, January passed, and I still wasn’t happy in my personal life. I was in my final semester at Missouri State University and longed for it to be over so my life could finally start. February passed, and March came, and the pandemic began to rear its ugly head. College moved completely online.

Online classes were an easy transition for me. I’d taken at least two online classes every semester since my second in college, and I loved online learning. I didn’t have a job, and therefore, staying at home 98% of the time as opposed to 90% of the time hardly changed my life at all. Online church was a big adjustment for my family and church, but we held onto the fact that we knew we’d all be back together again, and several weeks later, we were.

During the first few months of the pandemic, my personal problems and plans took a backseat to adjusting to our new schedule and growing concern over the state of the country. I’d expected to have a full-time job by the time I’d graduated, but very few places in my local area wanted to hire new employees during a pandemic. It appeared this year would not be the year I had dreamed it would be. How could I grow when there were no opportunities to go places and experience the next phase of my adult life? How could there be any positive change amidst a pandemic? How could I find restoration when more things in my life were taken away? How could I find fulfillment and joy when there was distraction, frustration, and turmoil in my life and all around me?

The summer passed, and God blessed me with a part-time online position as a writing tutor, and though it wasn’t what I had hoped it would be, 2020 began to change me for the better.

After a series of sermons and messages during which God spoke into my life, I decided to cut distractions out of my life and give God complete control over my desires and plans. In the lowest moment of my life when I despaired over whether I would truly be able to connect with God the way I needed to for a miracle to happen in my life, God spoke to me about pouring out my entire being to Him and serving Him with everything, even if I didn’t think it amounted to very much.

So, I started this blog, stepping far out of my comfort zone, to use for Him the passion He gave me for writing. And after several weeks of studying His Word more, praying more fervently, and seeking Him more, I’ve become closer to Him and closer to the person He wants me to be. Lord knows (and my family knows), I am lightyears away from being that best version of myself, but I am closer than I was when 2020 started.

I prayed for growth, and I got it.

I now run two websites and a blog on two social media sites, and God blessed me with publication of a short story of mine over the summer.

I asked for positive change, and I got it.

2019 me had become less than pleased with my personal life and where I was in my life. I wanted to be as happy and content as I had been so long ago before I allowed college and spiritual struggles to drain me and weaken my joy. So, I prayed for restoration, fulfillment, and joy.

2020 me found restoration, fulfillment, and joy in my relationship with God alone. It took years of suffering and a pandemic to stir my soul and move me to action, but I decided not to allow my pain to control my life anymore.

God gave me everything I had asked for in 2020. None of it looked like what I had thought it would, but He didn’t fail me, and He never will.

What’s the takeaway I learned from this year?

Speak life, not death over your situation. Words have power.

Pray in faith. The storm may still be brewing, but our peace is in God, and He is the Miracle-Worker.

Believe in God. Whatever His Promises are for you, they will come to pass.

Look up. Look up to Jesus where our help comes from, and look up to Heaven, our eternal home, because He is coming back soon.

I struggled as we all have in various ways this year, but I became a different person than I was in January 2020. I grew, changed for the better, was restored in my soul, and became fulfilled and filled with the joy of the Lord. I still have a long way to go, but 2020 taught me to never give up and never go back to the way I used to be.

Only God knows what 2021 may bring us, but no matter what may come, my prayer is that we will see the promises of God become manifested in our lives and that we will become the strong, faithful fighters for truth and humble servants of God that He wants us to be.

So, speak life. Pray in faith. Believe in God. Look up.

Jesus is on the Throne!

Going Deeper

Have your prayers ever seemed like a one-sided laundry list of your problems, preventing you from going deeper in your relationship with God?

“So, God, I have this problem with this thing that just won’t go away, and this has been happening, and this person has brought ‘x’ situation to my attention, and I don’t understand why they don’t seem all that concerned, and why won’t so-and-so do this one thing that I really wish they would do that would help us with that other situation, and ugh, God, my finances have been so tight lately, and I’m super busy, and it’s like I don’t have any time to get anything done during the day, and it seems I can’t find the time to really connect with You when I have all this stuff going on, and then there’s so-and-so’s health that we’re really concerned about, and this country’s problems, and my church stuff, and school, and work, and so many other things, and I just need You to help me out with it all, and oh, look at the time! I’ve got so much to do today, and I’m already exhausted. Okay, God, if You could just take care of it all today, that’d be great. Thanks. Okay, bye!”

Perhaps each of us have been here in our walks with God (most likely more than once) when life overwhelms us, but how often do we simply devote our prayer time to just worshipping God? Sometimes, when I’ve been overwhelmed with life, I often find my prayer time doesn’t take me deeper in my walk with Him because I’m going over all my problems and making myself more concerned about how “x” will go. But I always find myself wanting to go deeper.

How do we go deeper when life consumes us? Worship.

“Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of his holiness.” ~Psalms 29:2 (KJV)

Worship helps us take our mind off our troubles and puts our focus on God, ushering us into His Presence. We can easily overlook the worship part of our prayers and our church services when we’re busy and preoccupied, but we should endeavor to break this habit and worship Him more when life goes all 2020 on us. We may worship God in various ways, but one way that helps me get in the spirit of worship is through song.

When Paul and Silas were in prison, did they give God a laundry list of their problems? No.

They sang praises to God.

(23) “And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely:

(24) Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.

(25) And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.” ~Acts 16:23-25 (KJV)

It is when we worship God in spite of our problems that we find more peace and reassurance in Him when life gets overwhelming.

“I come to You, Lord, time and time again,

Needing answers to questions I don’t understand,

But today, Lord, I come to You, asking nothing in return.

I want to love You, just let me love You.”

(“Let Me Love You” by Clint Brown)

Worship helps us let go of our worries and cares, give them to God, and instead focus on His greatness. Worship is essential because it takes our focus completely off the self and onto Him.

“Take us to deep, deep places

Where all we can see is You.

Let us see open Heaven

With angels surrounding You.”

(“Deep Places” by William McDowell)

Worship takes us to a place where we don’t see our troubles, where we instead see the glory of our King. Worship helps us put in the time with God to develop a closer walk with Him as we focus on Him more and less on ourselves.

“I decrease as You increase

It’s all about You! It’s not about me.”

(“More, Holy Spirit” by Covenant Worship)

Worship is when we recount all the great things He’s done and reflect on how great He is. Worship is when we declare His power and might, and as we do so, our faith increases, our love for Him increases, and we grow spiritually. He takes us to a level of pure praise and worship and invites us into His Throne Room. Pure worship to God is when He fills us up with His Spirit until we overflow.

The Spirit of God is something of which we can never have too much.

No one ever says to God, “You know, I think that’s enough. I’ve got a lot of Your Spirit in me. I don’t think I need anymore. I’m good, thanks.”

We can never have too much or enough of Him, but we always need more of Him because we don’t have enough strength on our own to get through life’s struggles. Going deeper in a relationship with God requires that we surrender our desire to control everything, approach His Thone in worship, and give it all to Him.

“Fill me up till I overflow

I wanna run over, I wanna run over!

Fill me up, God; fill me up, God; fill me up, God; fill me up!”

(“Fill Me Up/Overflow Medley” by Tasha Cobbs)

If you’re struggling with going deeper in your relationship with God, then in your next prayer session or during the next church service, devote that time to pure worship to God and see the change in your spirit. Notice the change in your outlook on life and your love for Him when you spend more of your time praising Him for His mercy and love and might.

Worship is the key to that secret place with God. All it requires of us is our surrender, and that is the place where things change and where He takes us deeper.

Prayer and Perseverance

I made it.

After 5 ½ years, I finally walked in my graduation ceremony at Missouri State University. I technically graduated in May, but COVID resulted in a delayed ceremony.

I entered college in the fall of 2015, and it all feels like a century ago. And yet I remember it all so clearly—the all-nighters, the pre-exam dread, the panic attacks when I didn’t get my desired grade on an assignment, the shortness of breath after rushing across campus to get to back-to-back classes in time. I could possibly write a book about my college experience because I took a wide range of challenging courses, had unusual and interesting encounters with students and classmates, and managed to get through it all unscathed. But also slightly traumatized.

The most important accomplishment after 5 ½ years of attending liberal colleges is (as some have told me) that I kept my faith through it all. Indeed, I left college this past May with a stronger understanding of who I am in Christ than I had when I entered college in 2015. There were moments when classmates openly ridiculed conservative and Christian beliefs as though they assumed no one in the room held those beliefs. There were liberal professors who taught ideologies and theories counter to what I believe, but I was always able to discern between the truth and a lie. God kept my mind stayed on Him through it all. There were even so many moments when I was positive I wouldn’t pass a test or keep a 4.0 (which meant the world to me), but every time, I prayed, didn’t give up, and trusted God to take care of it. And He did.

You see, I can’t do anything on my own—pass a test, write a great paper, or withstand others’ ridicule and challenges of my beliefs.

But through Christ, I can do all those things.

I firmly believe that He is the reason I made it this far when I was depressed and burned out from college in 2018. He is the reason I persevered and was able to graduate. He is the reason I can testify today that no amount of secular teaching ever caused me to waver in my faith and belief in Him. The more college exposed me to worldly spirits and points of view, the closer He pulled me to Him because I kept praying and kept believing in Him.

Prayer and perseverance.

That’s it.

If you’re in college right now or thinking of going to college someday soon, be encouraged that you can make it through and finish strong. Don’t stop praying. Don’t stop studying His Word. Don’t stop going to church.

Just breathe. You will make it.

Pray. (Give your cares to God.)

And repeat.

Every single day take it step by step and day by day. Pretty soon, you’ll be looking back over that finish line, relieved that you made it and rejoicing in God for carrying you through.

He did it for me. I know He’ll do it for you.