SMART Goals for Your Best Year Bible Journaling Devotional
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Faith-based SMART Goals
Planning your best year means having SMART goals. SMART Goals require that goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. While this model is great for goals, it lacks the faith-based component. Here’s another option for SMART goals that might feel a bit better for those who prefer to put the focus back on God.
Specific
Specifically, ask God for direction when you’re in prayer. For goals to be successfully set, they need to be distinct and well defined. Praying can help you define your path. Generalized, vague goals aren’t effective because they lack sufficient direction.
Keep in mind that goals are designed to help show you the way, especially with God’s guidance. It’s nice to know that we’re not alone in the process. As Christians, we are blessed with access to the guidance and support of the greatest power in the universe.
Meaningful
When it comes to meaningful goal setting, praying is the best way to jump-start the process. By setting SMART goals in the context of prayer, there’s a much greater likelihood that they will be meaningful and glorify God as well. If not, they’re probably not goals worth setting. Take some time to pray to God about your heart and ask him to help you set meaningful goals to accomplish His purpose.
Attainable
Has God provided resources that you need to get started (even if he hasn’t provided everything you need to finish)? Resources don’t have to be money. They can include time, people, materials and more. Take the time to consider the God-given resources around you. You’ll find that you have all the resources you need to get started.
Trust that God will provide what is needed in His perfect timing. If you’re anything like me, you want a perfect plan with infinite resources and a schedule that is right on track. Ha! I make plans, but God makes better ones (even if I don’t see it right away).
Relevant
How is the goal relevant to the purpose and gifts God has blessed you with? You’ll end up frittering your time (and your life) away if you set inconsistent, widely scattered, goals that aren’t relevant to the gifts and purpose God has graced you with. Setting relevant goals that have purpose will help you develop the focus necessary to achieve your SMART goals.
Timely
Is this God’s will and time frame? Continue taking action, but realize that your timetable is not God’s. Submit to His will and time frame. He may want things done earlier or later than you planned. Be patient and have faith that if it is truly meant to happen, it will when the time is right.
Verbalize Your Goals
Something powerful comes about when you verbalize your goals, whether it’s a conversation you have with God, journal about it, or create art in your Bible. When you write down or pray about a goal, it helps hold you accountable. Bottom line, you haven’t really set your goals if you haven’t written them down or prayed to God about them.
SMART Goals both Big and Small
You should include SMART goals that are both big and small. Just because they’re big doesn’t mean they’re not attainable. We all need a few “God” sized goals because they help us grow and deepen our faith.
Nothing is impossible with our Lord, but don’t be tied to the outcome. If the goal doesn’t come to fruition even if you took action to make it happen, it may not be the right time, the right “thing,” or perhaps the journey is what God wanted you to experience. God is in control.
To have your best year, you need to have SMART goals. God is aware of the dreams that you have and what you want to accomplish in life, so let him be your ally.
What are your SMART goals for this year?
Bible Verses for the New Year
Ephesians 4:31-32
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Ephesians 4:31-32
Psalm 73:23-26
Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Psalm 73:23-26
Psalm 81:13-14
Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Psalm 81:13-14
Romans 8:28
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Romans 8:28
Psalm 46:10
“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!”
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Psalm 46:10
Phillipians 1:12-14
I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Philippians 1:12-14
Psalm 71:3
Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Psalm 71:3
Isaiah 58:11
And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Isaiah 58:11
Proverbs 15:22
Without counsel plans fail, but with many advisers they succeed.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Proverbs 15:22
James 2:17
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year James 2:17
2 Corinthians 1:20
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.
SMART Goals for Your Best Year 2 Corinthians 1:20
Luke 14:28
For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?
SMART Goals for Your Best Year Luke 14:28
Job 42:2
I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be restrained.
Bible journaling Job 42:2
Bible journaling Job 42:2
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