Aim Higher!

Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” Prov. 16:3

I was thinking the other day about the future, mostly 2023. I wanted some plans, goals and ideas for the coming year. I wanted vision. It’s hard to start the new game of 2023 when you don’t know what life will bring.

I want to do more of what God wants me to do this year. Then there’s the things I want to do. There are so many decisions, choices and options to make and I felt overwhelmed. Most of all, I don’t want to be the same person at the end of the year that I am at the beginning of the year-spiritually and otherwise.

I have been praying since the end of December about the coming year. I still have so much bouncing around in my head-so many thoughts and getting nowhere. My head feels like a pinball machine game. I was being propelled into a world of options and choices bouncing back and forth and getting nowhere.

Life is much like that – we are thrust into the world. We start moving at the beginning and don’t slow down much. We bounce off of different obstacles every year and throughout our lives. As we bounce off obstacles, we score “points” while enroute. Points are what we earn and learn and get to keep with us for the rest of our lives. We try to control life and the obstacles from the side to try and direct ourselves through to the final point. To stay on the path takes skill. The skill of making points is when you continue hitting the ball forward until you miss. Points are keeping an account of the obstacles you face and conquer. “Each of us will give an account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:12) In life we try to conquer the obstacles-win, learn and move on past them. The goal is to continue to try to move forward and “play” as long as possible.

There is a strategy to the game and the Bible and Holy Spirit are our guides to playing perfectly. First, you must read the rules or guidelines. Memorize them and let them sink into your spirit. Players who don’t read the rules, don’t look at all of the information that’s out there in front of them. They jump into the game, click some buttons, and before you know it, they’re dead! Christians just going through the motions of life, are not aware of all that’s out there. They do not know what they are capable of with rules and guidance. They may never know if they have not read and studied the guidelines. They are just content to let it all sort of happen to them and they don’t make it past all the obstacles. They don’t win. If you take your time, work hard and study the user manual, you’ll learn how to get past the obstacles and win some freebies in the process

I learned, from Google, how every machine has a transformer. That’s what makes the machine run. Every machine has a power supply that “comes out of the transformer and converts it into usable voltage.” God is our power supply, and the Holy Spirit is the transformer that gives us voltage or potential. It makes the obstacles we pass through usable. The transformer fluctuates up and down. Seasons in our lives fluctuate up and down but voltages will be higher when playing the game. So when life puts obstacles in your way to move forward, go to the power supply. Claim and use your voltages and you’ll go farther in the game of life.

The game is much like life in that you need a goal and you HAVE TO PLAY. You can’t sit back and do nothing. You can pass an obstacle and get the ball on the flipper and wait and wait and wait, because it’s hard or scary what can happen. But life (and pinball) don’t work that way. Eventually, the game will shut off, just like your life. So you truly have no choice but to play.

So now that we’ve all been thrust into a new game of 2023, we will have choices to make and obstacles to get by. To set us up for an amazing game, God gives us what we need-a transformer, voltage, vision, rules, knowing our goal and making a plan for whatever God has shown us to aim for. Don’t settle for being content with last year’s score. Aim higher!“ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which has God has called me having the Word in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3:13)

“ Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, knowing that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” Col. 3:23-24

“ And don’t just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best! Work from the heart for your real master, for God, confident that you will get paid in full when you come into your.” (MSG)