Which of the following are similar to the ways you've served Christ in your family? [check all that apply]
• Taught your kids to see God's glory in nature
• Washed the dishes without being asked
• Played a board game with your kids
• Encouraged your wife to finish her master's degree
• Attended a child's open house at school
• Worked fewer hours to be with your family
• Set an example of a godly prayer life for your children
• Held a crying child
• Swung on the tire swing with your daughter
• Told your wife why you're still in love with her
• Told your son he's got what it takes
• Coached soccer
• Let you child correct you now and then
• Fixed the vacuum cleaner
• Taught your sons to ride a bike
• Listened patiently to a complaint of your wife
• Taped your child's artwork to your office wall
• Admitted to your kids that you were wrong
• Told your children how Christ entered your life
• Cleaned up vomit
• Taught your children to love books
• Been romantic without expecting sex
• Told your daughter she's smart/beautiful
• Set standards for your kids and stuck to them
• Dealt graciously with a busybody neighbor
• Peeled carrots
• Watched movies together
Dreams and Goals Theme of the Week: How Good Feels Tuesday, September 21, 2004
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Men of IntegritySeptember/October 2004Dreams and GoalsTheme of the Week: How Good FeelsTuesday, September 2175
Key Bible Verse: May he grant your heart's desire and fulfill all your plans (Psalm 20:4). Bonus Reading:Psalm 145:13b–21
Reading a book I'd brought along on my annual solo retreat in the Rockies, a story about explorer John Goddard caught my attention. At age 15 he wrote down his dreams, a list of 127 goals for the rest of his life. Many were places to explore, some were knowledge or skills to acquire. Amazingly, by the time Goddard was in his seventies, he'd accomplished well over 100 of these goals!
Sitting on the cabin bed, reading over Goddard's list, I thought about my own life. Why not? I pulled out a pad of paper and started writing. At nearly 1:00 a.m.—115 goals later—I put down my pen. As I shut off the light and lay in the cabin's darkness, it hit me. I'd come to the mountains to get my heart reconnected with God. So should I ignore those goals as mere selfish yearning? Or embrace them as something from God?
I now believe the "life list" I drew up that night was really God's desires rushing out of my heart onto paper. Passionate for God and hungry for His Word, I was simply His child, receiving good things flowing down to me through His grace. Since then, I've checked off goals as I accomplished them. In the past four years, nearly a third have been achieved, to the glory of God.
—John Bolin in Life Unlimited
My Response: What would make my heart a place where God's desires are free to flow?
Thought to Apply: You are only one step away from God's doing a fresh thing in your life. Choose to dream His dream.
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