Good morning, happy Monday & HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I hope your 2022 is off to a great start!
“You can have results or excuses. Not both.”
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Yesterday, I had the honor of delivering the lesson at my church and I spoke about the exchange with God & Moses in Exodus 3-4. God commanded Moses to go to the Pharaoh of Egypt and demand that the Israelites be released from slavery. Rather than gladly accepting the task that God gave directly to him (and through a burning bush that never burned up, no less), Moses gave excuses. 5 of them to be exact. 1. Why me? 2. Who are you? 3. What if people don’t believe me? 4. I’m bad at speaking. But his final excuse is real a classic: “Please send someone else.” (Exodus 4:13). Moses basically told God “I don’t want to.” Wow, that takes some guts!
Now, I am fully aware that the task God was giving Moses was huge and scarry one … but I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to tell God “I don’t want to.”
My 2 ½ year old granddaughter will occasionally say “I don’t want to” but us as adults don’t usually directly say “I don’t want to.” But our actions oftentimes say that even though the words don’t come out of our mouths.
“I don’t want to wake up” … so I hit the snooze button
“I don’t want to be productive” … so I stay in the recliner watching TV
“I don’t want to mend that relationship” … so I’ll continue to ignore it
“I don’t want to spend time with that person” … so I make myself unavailable
“I don’t want to …”
The “I don’t want to” examples are virtually endless. We as human beings are very capable of being full of excuses.
My challenge to the church congregation was to let 2022 be a year of NO EXCUSES.
We only get one shot at this life … and I don’t want my life to be defined by excuses.
The next couple of weeks ahead I will share all sorts of 2021 financial data (still compiling all the info), but for this first Monday of the year I would like to issue an idea to consider: crafting a personal mission statement.
My personal mission statement is: “A passionate follower of Jesus Christ and a leader in life.” I crafted this about 6 years ago and this very simple statement I try to live my life by, I try to use as my litmus test in making decisions, I hope it is what is written on my tombstone.
If this is something you are interested in pursuing here are a couple of resources that might be helpful: How to Create Personal Mission Statements | 5 Easy Steps | LiveCareer / How to Write a Personal Mission Statement (40+ Examples) | Indeed.com
As we are now in 2022, I plan on incorporating into client meetings a “statement of financial purpose.” This is basically one sentence (or 2 max) that defines what you want money to do you for. Why are we investing? What do we want to accomplish? The clearer we can be as to WHY we invest, the better we can do in HOW we invest. It is my hope that in the year ahead we can, more than ever, live and invest INTENTIONALLY 😊
Happy New Year … I look forward to catching up soon.