Part of having a
fulfilled life is creating and accomplishing goals. Goals are what drive us to
succeed. They are what create in us a desire to change for the better. Goals
are a way for us to be self-reliant and make ourselves better. This semester
was a great opportunity for me to set a lofty goal of creating a rule of life.
This rule of life is an outline of how I will act, create, feel, work, play,
and live with the goal of accomplishing God’s will in my life. This paper will
outline what my rule of life is and how it will affect my life and ministry.
Verse
One thing that I
found the need to do when crafting my rule of life is have a guiding verse that
I use to dwell on and internalize. The verse I chose is Micah 6:8 which states,
“He has shown you, oh man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you. But
to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” This verse
has been one that has stayed with me throughout my life. It encompasses a very
important aspect of my life and ministry and that is that God has given me all
that I need through scripture to have a fulfilled life. He wants me to be just,
merciful and humble throughout my life and that is what I desire as well.
Artifact of Worship
My guitar is
something that reminds me of my commitment to Christ. Every time I pick it up,
there is something supernatural that happens. I want to be a better person. I
want to show the world how great God is and I want to make beautiful music to
glorify his name.
Core Values,
Core Values are also and important
aspect of my rule of life. To be able to adequately be a testament of Christ, I
must have clearly defined core values. There are many that I would like to
include in my rule of life but I have narrowed down three that I think are the
most important.
The
first is to make love central to every relationship I have. This goes from work
to friends to family. I must be willing to love everyone I come in contact with
and be a loving person. The second is to not tolerate sin within my own life or
the lives of my friends and family. Sin is something that too often gets
ignored because we don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. No more. The third is
let the Bible guide my beliefs, don’t let my beliefs guide the Bible. There are
controversial aspects of scripture and I think that they are there for a
reason. My job is not to change it to suite my own whims.
Self-Care goals
These are the
things that I will do to take care of my body, mind, and soul in order to lead
a Christ-like fulfilled life. I must take care of my spiritual wellbeing. I
will do so by making sure I stay in the community of believers and make
Biblical study a priority. My family will also be a part of my spiritual life
and they will be included in my Biblical study. My wife and I will strive to
grow closer to God when we are together as well as apart, focusing on reading
the Bible, praying with one another, leading each other in righteousness and
refusing to accept sin in each other’s lives. I will take care of my body by
eating right, getting enough sleep, exercising, and avoiding addictive things which
harm my body. I will also strive to seek council with friends and family to
help me discern how to best administer all of these goals to myself. In
ministry, I will be going to the governing bodies of the church regularly with
questions, concerns or issues that I find in ministry as well as meeting with a
friend outside of ministry to receive objective advice which negates the bias
that a friend within the church would have.
Vital Behaviors
These are things
that I must do on a weekly basis in order to remain healthy. I have three that
I absolutely must accomplish every week. First I must have a date night at
least once per week with my wife. Second I must take time to create art every
week. Whether this is music, painting, computer graphics, or photography, there
must be an aspect of creativity in my week. The final one is to get at least
seven to eight hours of sleep every night to function well the next day. When I
miss sleep, I feel the pain of tiredness for the whole week and I feel that I
cannot accomplish all I should. If I can accomplish all of these I will be able
to stay stable for accomplishing the rest of my goals which are not as vital
but no less important.
Accountability/Conclusion
Accomplishing
everything I need to do to stay fulfilled and effective in ministry will be
tough. The one thing that I can guarantee is that I will need accountability to
do it. This will involve meeting with someone on a weekly basis to talk about
how my vital behaviors are going and what fears I have going into every week. I
will meet with a person who has no connection with my church or my family so
that they will be the most objective possible. If I can meet weekly with this
person, I will be able to be held accountable for accomplishing all of my
values, goals and vital behaviors.
