What's Your Aim?

I've been watching lots of kids' programming with the grandsweeties here this week. Right now CyberChase is on. There are a couple story lines going on, but one really caught my attention.

A couple of the kids are working on improving their hockey scoring. They were consistently missing the mark. The shot was a bank shot and each time they shot they missed because they didn't know where to aim. Once they were given a mark they were able to make the shot.

And that got me thinking...Two questions come to my mind when I think about aim: what are you aiming for; and how's your aim? The what assumes a target. Do you know what you want? My younger daughter wants to go back to school, but isn't willing to start until she's more sure about what she wants to take. Pretty sensible to me.

Typically we can set a lot of goals at this time of year. Some of them barely keep our attention for a week and then we feel disappointment and frustration at our lack of follow through. Perhaps the real problem lies in how we set our goals. As I was thinking about this the image of a target came to mind. You may have the goal in mind, but are you aiming for it? I think we've become to geared to being satisfied with just reaching the outer rings. We don't expect to hit the center so why try? That spot is reseved for a select few. I have a scientific word to resond to that: hogwash! What are you aiming for? What do you believe you can accomplish? Are you selling yourself short?

Spiritually, I believe we need goals. A few years back I felt led to led my goal, or guiding principle be "contentment." That was tough. Battling against discontent was good for my prayer life, that was for sure. This yearI keep coming back to the word "listen." God knows what I need and I have a suspicion that he's getting tried of me telling him how to handle things. I need to get better, and better at listening for and to his voice.

So, how's your aim and what are you aiming for?