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SMART GOALS Week 1: "Be Specific" - What should you really care about?

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 
Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[e]?" 
These are the words of Jesus himself, from  Matthew 6:25-26.  
I have a good reason for beginning exactly right here, with this passage. Bear with me.
This cute little bird (above) showed up, chirping his adorable little fuzzy head off, in my yard one day. He had evidently tried to venture from his nest a little too soon, and found himself in an unfortunate predicament----very much like the endless stream of mama's boys standing on the defendant's side of the courtroom on Judge Judy, mooching off women because they are too little to fly yet...but I digress (while still making a valid point, I hope)...

 So, this little bird, who seemed to think if he shut his eyes really, really hard, that no one would see him, became a sitting duck, so to speak, for all the neighborhood cats. Having recently buried another such foundling we failed to rehabilitate, I was determined to redeem myself with nature by making sure this little guy made it. His nest was in the tree above the fence-line, and his mama was still swooping and hovering helplessly, clearly unable to to pick him up to put him back. I scooped him up and placed him in a makeshift cage inside our 8-ft privacy fence...doubly guarding him from cats, I hoped. I kept him on the back porch, where his mama could see him...the next two weeks became a constant vigil of feeding, watering, checking, watching, guarding, worrying....it was like having a newborn all over again! 

 Long story short--he got stronger, flew around the yard a few times, then flew away. Whew! it was liberating---no, not being free from the responsibilities--the thrill of succeeding in getting him back in the air, safe and sound.

 How much more do you think God is concerned about us, and our well-being? Should we spend so much time and energy wrapping our thoughts, plans, and scrambling after things He has already promised to take care of?  When you're 14, it's somewhat acceptable if your goal-setting extends only a little farther than MissMe Jeans and MochaJava frappuccino's, but when you're a grownup, you should have arrived at the conclusion that clothes and fru-fru consumables are just that--consumable. 

 Set your sights a little higher. Make a serious effort to sift through list of goals before you charge headlong into an abyss of insurmountable frustration. This will be painful--much like cleaning out your closet, letting go of everything that falls into one of these categories:

  • The good ragged, faded favorites (Every year, you drag them out and try them on for new year's resolutions, and, like those threadbare yoga pants, it is an effortless effort. You never failed to meet these goals because you set the bar so low. Come on--let's do something that's actually going to take some effort, for a change)
  • Don't fit anymore (They never did, actually. You were being waaaaaay too ambitious, the day you pulled them off the rack (but you ignored that nagging little voice of reason and bought them, anyway). Do you REALLY intend to lose 50 lbs? write a book in a month? repaint and redecorate your whole house, all by yourself? You failed at these goals because you were trying to eat the whole elephant at once, instead of one little bite at a time.)
  • "What was I thinking???" You know--those super-trendy things that would never, ever suit you. You tried Zumba because everyone else was doing it, but you have two left feet and no sense of rhythm (like me)...You failed at these goals because you were trying to be someone else.



A good (and wise) friend told me "he who chases too many rabbits, catches none." He was right. Let's get busy and pick your rabbits carefully. Choose your battles, and get ready to fight.

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