“Let us examine and probe our ways, and let us return to the Lord.
We lift up our heart and hands toward God in heaven…”
Lamentations 3:40-41, NASB
At Living Strategically, we’re all about using our time, energy, money, and talents in ways that make an impact for eternity. A wise steward knows that these assets are too precious to waste. Here’s a strategic method for examining your life and living with intentionality!
Evaluation Process
For our family, we sit down every six months and prayerfully evaluate how we’re doing on reaching goals and utilizing our resources. We keep a journal where we have written our key areas of focus and prioritize how to invest the next six months. These investments cover the areas of time, finances, ministry opportunities, personal projects, career, health, etc.
It’s so helpful to look back in the journal, covering many years, and see the progress we’ve made but also the path to follow for the future. As the months pass by, our written goals provide us with accountability and help us keep an eternal perspective. They also keep us on high alert for things that would distract or prohibit us from reaching goals.
We believe if we’re diligent in the little things, over time we’ll accomplish much. Like it says in Proverbs 21:5, “Plans of the diligent surely lead to gain…” Another version says, “Steady plodding leads to prosperity…”
Biblical Framework
It’s also important that our goals are based on a biblical framework. God’s Word contains all the wisdom and guidance we need to choose the right path. And God has given mankind the responsibility to do exactly that. If we don’t fulfill our responsibility to chart our course then someone else (bosses, advertisers, family members, our peer group) will chart it for us. We want to be following God’s agenda for our lives, rather than leaving it to chance or peer pressure.
Being Proactive
Our personal evaluation method is completely opposite from basic human nature. Typically people react to circumstances instead of being proactive. Patrick Morley, author of The Man in the Mirror1, says, “Instead, we rush from task to busy task, but we don’t call enough time-outs to reflect on life’s larger meaning and purpose. Rather, we live myopically from day-to-day-to-day; we live under the tyranny of today’s problems.”
Stewardship
An important part of stewardship is looking at the big picture rather than being short-sighted — taking the time to examine how we are investing the assets that God entrusts into our care. If we’re not careful, we’ll lose sight of our higher calling and reach the end of our lives without fulfilling our God-given purpose.
Are you managing your affairs with diligence and careful examination? We’d encourage you to take a time-out and truly evaluate how you’re doing in working towards God’s calling on your life.
1 The Man in the Mirror written by Patrick Morley and published by Zondervan in 1997, updated in 2014.
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