Monday, October 19, 2009

Reachable Goals

Imagine what it would be like to try and hit something you cannot see. If you have ever been to a birthday party and there was a pinata or a "pin the tail on the donkey" contest, you may remember how difficult some of that was.

How about trying to bowl strikes without being able to see the pins? Actually this is not as hard as you think, because bowling lanes have markers and arrows that make it possible for a person to aim at something other than the actual pins in order to have success. In fact, in 1933, a man by the name of Bill Knox demonstrated this fact. He had a screen placed just above the fowl line so that he could not see any of the pins. He could not see most of the bowling lane, either. But Mr. Knox used this method to bowl a perfect 300 game, 12 strikes in a row!

How did he do it? He used a method called, "spot-bowling." This method simply suggests that a person use a close marker on the lane just past the foul line. You just use the same motion and hit that close mark every time. It makes perfect sense. If your form is good, then easy targets will line you up for success.

The concept that produced "spot bowling" is an idea that really can work for us in our daily Christian lives. We often miss the mark when we place our spiritual targets too far away. We end up feeling like miserable failures and our faith is weakened by how many times we find the gutter. But if we will set reachable goals with nearby targets we will hit them . This involves consistency in form and confidence that God will help us to improve every time we do our best.

Stop looking so far down the lane! Find a reachable spiritual goal and hit it! Hit it again, and again! You will find that in attaining reachable goals, you will have the confidence to be a stronger Christian than you ever thought possible.

Being a Christian is not as difficult as many people make it. It is not about your perfection, it is about faith, obedience, determination, and executing the simple plan of the One who will perfect all things for us.

"I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." ~ Philippians 3:14

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