Is your goal achievable?

“Everybody talks about priorities and very few do anything about it.” Who said that? The answer is - I did. It is simply an observation on life as I have watched it being lived out now for over ninety years. There is a huge gap between profession and what actually happens in life.
Now that’s a rather dreary way to begin. What I had in mind when I sat down was to share what several well-known individuals have identified as the most important thing in their life.
       
       John Wayne said it was “tomorrow” 
       Audrey Hepburn wanted “to be happy” 
       The Dalai Lama desired “harmony” 
       Maya Angelou said “courage”
       John Kennedy said it was “physical fitness”
       For Tim Tebow, it was his “relationship with Jesus Christ.”
       
Not a bad collection of goals. Some of them are achievable, others less so. However, the question that seems always to come up is, “Why do people so regularly fall short of their aspirations?” How often is a New Year’s resolution kept? Is it due to some basic flaw in human nature or are the goals too high?
The former suggestion reflects the historic view of the Christian faith, that while man was created to mirror the nature of God (we are “his image”), sin entered the picture at the inception of history and crippled man morally so that our essential concern is for self rather than for God and others. And I believe that to be true because it is so clearly taught in scripture.
       However, that’s not the entire story. It is also true that people regularly fall short because the moral expectations of scripture are incredibly high. Let’s look at a couple from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It says that we will inherit the world if we are “meek,” be blessed if we “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” and see God if we are “pure in heart” (Matt. 5:5-8). How are we doing on these basic requirements? Has anyone mastered meekness? Do we hunger and thirst for righteousness (that is, to always do the right thing)? And what about purity of heart? The honest people I know acknowledge defeat. But then what? Does that mean we won’t make it? 
       Another answer is, “Well, Jesus didn’t mean what he said.” But that is unacceptable because if he doesn’t tell the truth then he is not the one we believe him to be. 
       One group within the Christian faith says that the level of living of which Jesus speaks is not intended for the present age but for some future period in time. This “dispensational” approach doesn’t enjoy the status it once had.
       The “reformed” school of thought holds that Jesus’ goals are intended to be unreachable; you do your best and when you fail you have to throw yourself on God’s mercy, that’s what he wanted in the first place. 
       I believe there is a more satisfactory answer. The ethical goals of Christianity are not intended to be reached in some quantitative way, but serve as guides to a more effective Christian life-style. To be sincerely headed toward the kind of life that pleases God is to have “achieved” it. As a parent you wouldn’t punish a child who was doing everything they could at their current stage in life to become all that you would ultimately want them to be. Only a radical legalist would require perfection in a process toward something that is impossible given our human nature.