THEARTOFCHRIST — Issue 32: Goals
The Lord Establishes the Goal
How Christ brings about life, and how He supplies it more abundantly.

Anchor: Many Are the Plans, but the Purpose of the Lord Will Stand

The herald announces the sentence first, because the sentence is the whole lesson. Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand (Prov 19:21, paraphrase). The goal, in this order, is not something the man achieves. It is something the Lord establishes. The Establisher is named before the plan is made.

The world reads goals and builds a program around them. The diagnosis is counted: dreams without a plan, drifting without direction, motivation that fades, progress that cannot be measured. The remedies follow the count: decide what you want, write it down, break it into smaller tasks, break those into daily steps, set a timeline, set deadlines, find someone to hold you accountable, reward yourself at each milestone. None of the observations are false. The order is upside down.

A program built on achieving the goal treats the goal as a future the man authors, and the man as the author of his own life. Every goal becomes a test. Did I plan clearly enough? Did I break it down small enough? Did I keep the timeline? Did I find the right accountability? Did I celebrate the milestone? The man who reached the goal reads the arrival as proof that his method worked. The man who missed the goal reads the miss as proof that his method failed. The life that was meant to be lived becomes an examination, and every milestone becomes evidence entered for or against the accused.

Apart from Christ, the goal itself becomes ownership. The man is alienated from the life of God (Eph 4:18, paraphrase), and so he appoints himself the author of his own future. He writes the plan, he sets the deadline, and he stands trial under the results. The creature whose days are numbered is given the job of securing his own tomorrow, and the failure is read as a lack of method. Plan more clearly. Break it down smaller. Hold the timeline harder. The verdict never changes, because the planner and the judge are the same man.

Scripture bears witness to how old this is. The connectors reveal the movement: the heart plans, the house is built, and the purpose stands last.

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps (Prov 16:9, paraphrase). The planning is not denied. It is placed. The man plans, and the Lord establishes — and the establishing is the sentence that decides whether the plan stands at all. A plan the Lord does not establish is not a plan that lacked detail. It is a plan that was never His purpose, and no amount of breaking it into daily steps makes it stand.

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain (Ps 127:1, paraphrase). The building is not condemned. The vanity is in building apart from the Builder. The man who rises early and stays up late, eating the bread of anxious toil, has mistaken effort for establishment. The house that stands is the house the Lord builds, and the labor that counts is labor inside His building, not labor offered as proof that the man built it himself.

So the tomorrow is named, and it is named in the right order. Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit" — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring (Jas 4:13-14, paraphrase). The itinerary is not wrong. The boasting is. The man who speaks of his year as a settled possession speaks as though tomorrow were his to author, and Scripture answers him with what he does not know. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that" (Jas 4:15, paraphrase). The "if the Lord wills" is not a disclaimer added to a plan the man already owns. It is the plan itself, spoken in its true order: the Lord wills first, and the living and doing follow from it.

The thread runs straight: the man cannot achieve the goal, because the goal was never his to establish.

The answer is not a better method. The answer is a Lord whose purpose stands.

It is the purpose of the Lord that will stand (Prov 19:21, paraphrase) — and the standing is His work, not the man's. The man does not make his purpose stand by planning clearly enough. The purpose stands because it is the Lord's, and the standing comes before his timeline. The verdict on his goals was given before his list of milestones was written.

Then comes the reversal of goals, and it is a gift, not a technique. The goal itself is changed. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own (Phil 3:12, paraphrase). The pressing is not the program's striving, a push so the method can succeed. The pressing follows a making-own that has already happened: Christ has made the man His own, and the man presses on inside that ownership.

Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:13-14, paraphrase). The goal is named, and the name is not an achievement. The goal is the upward call in Christ Jesus — the prize is a Person, not a milestone. The man who presses toward Christ does not measure his life by arrivals. He measures it by the Call that called him, and the Call stands whether the milestone is reached or not.

In Christ, the goal is received, then walked in.

The man hears that his goals are not a future to be authored but a purpose to be walked in, and the hearing itself is the gift — God gives hearing, and God gives growth. The missed deadline, the plan that fell apart, the milestone unreached, the year that went otherwise than written are all answered before the goal is set: the Lord whose purpose stands is the Establisher who orders the steps, and the man walks carefully because the purpose is already standing, not because his method has finally grown strong.

Walking carefully, in this order, is not a technique for achieving more. It is the shape of a man who trusts that the purpose already stands. The plan written down, the task broken into steps, the timeline kept, the brother who speaks honestly beside him — these are not proofs that the man owns his future. They are fruit, borne in the order grace set: purpose first, steps second, walking third.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil, for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow (Eccl 4:9-10, paraphrase). The fellow is not wrong. He is wrongly placed when he stands last, as a check on a method the man already owns. In the order of grace, the brother stands beside the walk because the man needs a voice outside his own planning, and the lifting comes before the milestone, not after it.

Rest, in this order, belongs inside the goal rather than after it. The program that drives the man to anxiety over every deadline and calls it ambition has mistaken striving for purpose. The man who reaches the end of the year without the arrival he wrote down is not failing the method. He is walking in the purpose appointed for him, because the Establisher was named before his plan was made.

Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established (Prov 16:3, paraphrase). The committing comes first, and the establishing follows from it. The plan that fails after being committed is not a failure of method. It is a plan the Lord did not establish, and the man who trusts the Establisher trusts that too.

Goals Reach the Body

Every topic in this workshop relates to physical life, and goals are bodily through and through — the hands that take up the work planned, the feet that walk the road toward the day's task, the mouth that speaks the plan aloud, the eyes that look toward the work ahead, the body that rises to the labor the morning requires. Christ supplies this life more abundantly (John 10:10, paraphrase), and the abundance is not a flawless record of arrivals. It is a purpose already standing, showing itself in the body.

The world's program counts the goals: the plans written, the tasks broken down, the timelines kept, the milestones celebrated, the arrivals judged. Apart from Christ, the count is the verdict: the man who is alienated from the life of God (Eph 4:18, paraphrase) treats even his future as a work to master, and so his goals become another place where he is cut off from life.

In Christ, the sentence is reversed. The man achieves his goal becomes the Lord establishes His purpose, and the reversal is not the man's achievement. The purpose stood before he planned, the steps were established before he walked, and the Call was given before he pressed on. The man who receives the standing purpose does not wait for his method to grow strong. He has already been given an Establisher. The purpose stands. The walk is careful, not because the man has finally mastered his future, but because the grace that made the purpose stand is training him to walk in it.