This was the verse we discussed this week. We talked about Paul's desire to be more like Christ and that being his ultimate goal and passion in life. To demonstrate aiming for the goal, we blew up balloons and let them go to see which direction they would go in. We tried to predict how they would fly through the air, but they were all over the place...up, down, in circles, spiraling...it was crazy! We talked about how our lives without God's direction are just like these balloons. We "spin our wheels", always busy and running around with things to do, places to go, and people to see...but we never accomplish anything that really matters. Living like this, we will never reach our goal to be more like Jesus.
Instead, we need to live God-directed lives and then we'll "run" straight and not easily diverted lives, towards a goal that really matters...Christlikeness! To demonstrate this, we attached a balloon to a straw fed through fishing line that stretched across our room. We blew up our balloon, let it go, and guess what? It went straight to its goal, never deviating from the path marked out for it! Why? Because it was attached to "God's will and direction" for it. That's just how we'll reach our goal to be more like Christ as well, by keeping ourselves attached to God's will and direction for our lives.
And to reach those goals we first need to learn how to set them. So we discussed goal planning and writing. We talked about big goals and and the smaller goals we can set to help us achieve those big goals. Since our ultimate goal is to be more like Christ, our homework for two weeks from tonight is to set a big goal and smaller ones that will ultimately result in our developing more Christlike qualities.
For some general practice in goal planning and writing, we had a little fun and began planning for Zero Gravity's first ever lock-in. That was our big goal and planning a theme, snacks, supplies lists, games, and dates and times became our smaller goals to help us reach that goal. There's no official date for a lock-in scheduled yet, but stay tuned ZG members because it's coming!
So don't forget your homework guys. There are plenty of goals out there to be set. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
Get along better with siblings
Be more respectful and obedient to parents
Not get so angry
Show Jesus to neighbors/people I meet or run into
Memorize Scripture
Spend more quiet time talking with God
Get into God's Word more
Show Jesus through a community service activity
Be a more faithful and kind friend
Now it's your turn guys. Can't wait to hear what you come up with!
