90 Days Makes a Difference
Who do you want to be as a disciple 90 days from now?
Have you given that any thought?
Every 90 days I take time to reexamine what I believe my God given purpose is in life and I set 90 day goals for work, home and personal development. I first started doing this when I began using The 7 Minute Life Daily Planner by Allyson Lewis some time last year. This process of quarterly reevaluation of life has been really valuable. I am healthier, more productive and more focused.
I have realized though that I need to layer into that process a distinct spiritual reevaluation every 90 days. Sometimes I will find myself setting spiritual goals as part of my personal development reflection, but not always.
How 90 Days is About to Effect Our Church
This 90 day goal setting process can be extremely effective. In my last quarter I had set a goal of increasing our Vacation Bible School attendance to 60 children. That is 50% more kids than we had last year. That’s pretty huge. Well we are about two and half weeks away from VBS and we already have almost 30 children pre-registered. We typically have virtually no one pre-registered, so I think we are moving along wonderfully. I think a significant part of this shift is directly result of getting very intentional about where we want to be in 90 days.
How 90 Days May Have Saved My Life
I have seen similar benefit in my health for setting 90 day goals. 3 months ago I went and had my cholesterol checked as part of my physical evaluation. I discovered I had high cholesterol. For 90 days, I essentially gave up fried food, red meat and limited my dairy consumption. I also incorporate foods know for lower cholesterol in my diet. Yesterday, I got it rechecked. Was it lower. No. My triglycerides had dropped significantly but the “bad” cholesterol had not reduced. So you may be saying, “What a waste of time?” Absolutely not. I now have a far healthier diet. I have lost some weight and identified that genetically I am prone to high cholesterol and need medication to reduce it. I may have just saved myself from a future heart attack by evaluating and being intentional for 90 days.
How 90 Days is Going to Transform Me as a Disciple
I have decided to prayerfully reevaluate who I am as a disciple right now and from that evaluation project where would I hope to be in 90 days. Then I will set specific goals and action steps to move forward as a disciple.
I am examining myself through three basics lenses: study, prayer, and action.
What is God calling me to learn during the next 90 days?
How is God calling me to grow in or through prayer over the next 90 days?
What is God calling me to do or become over the next 90 days?
So what about you? Who will you be as a disciple in 90 days?
I invite you to reevaluate, set goals and become a new disciple.
I really appreciate your post, very challenging. I often struggle with the dichotomy of doing something and making plans and goals, vs. allowing God to transform my life. How much is up to me creating and following plans / goals, and how much should I not have any goals / plans because it seems like God always changes or eliminates them. I suppose this partially because I don’t have the same perspective / goals for myself that God does. If I knew exactly what God’s plan was for my life I assume this would be easier, but I don’t think God is after easier, so there I am, left with my conundrum.
Thanks Discipleship Guy. I completely understand your struggle with the dichotomy. I often have it myself. There are a couple of things I do to deal with it. 1) I approach life and prayer with what I call an open hand agenda. I go into the day with an intention or agenda for the day in mind, but I hold it before God in an open hand, knowing that God may very well lift it from my hand and give me something else. 2) I use to ask God’s blessing on my day in the morning. I am shifting toward having a mindset of “This is your day God, what am I to do in it.” In other words I am trying to move away from “God be a part of my day” to “God how can I be a part of your day.”
These mindsets go a long way in helping me stay open and trusting God (if I can just remember and be diligent to maintain them).
Lastly, since writing that post I have stuggled with what my goals and intentions will be for the next 90 days. By the end of the weekend I hope to have those complete. I am really trying to listen for what that should look like. I want to discern rather decide. Hope that make sense.
Lastly, blessings on your blog. 🙂
Your shift in prayer is a great point! Many times we try to include God in our life instead of asking Him to include us in what He is doing. I love your approach to your goals. It’s a hard thing to do IMO, but it’s the correct approach. I still have a hard time discerning what the Lord is saying for me 7 days, 30, 60, 90 days out. Thanks for sharing!