Monday, August 10, 2009

My Goal List

Yes, this post seems misplaced in Mid-August because it feels like a New Year's Resolution List, but I'm doing it anyway!

Why am I doing this now? Well, when we were at Christ In Youth we received a "kingdom challenge." The sealed envelopes were handed out to us as we entered the auditorium that day. They ranged anywhere from not buying clothes for a year and donating the money to the poor to vacuuming your church worship center once a week. My challenge was to do family devotions once a week for a year. Well, the high school girls in my group were a little disappointed with my challenge- not sure if they wanted to see me sky diving for Jesus or what, but there was an audible sigh when I read mine. "That's easy for you" they said. "You already do that," and so on. Well guess what- I DON'T already do that. I do my own devotions, but not as a family. So it got me thinking, I really should be doing this- obviously :)

Then, of course I couldn't leave it at that. Ian's challenge had me wanting to challenge myself more as well. See, early in the week he realized that God was calling him to do something big to raise awareness for what's going in Mexico, just south of us. So, he's decided to ride his bike 207 miles to Rocky Point, MX. Then, a few days later, he got his kingdom challenge.
"Do not put gas in your car for 1 month and donate all money that would have been
spent to an environmental cause you believe in."


WOW- talk about a great way to train for a bike ride- riding your bike to work :) God's cool- huh? Well, it got me thinking about different areas of my life and were I need to work in some more discipline. So, here's what I'm thinking for myself as well as our family. We'll see how it goes :)

Personal Goals:
  • Spiritual: Listen to one Reasonable Faith podcast each month
  • Physical: walk 3xweek, Pilates & Lift 3xweek, Abs 2xweek
  • Mental: Read 1 book per month
  • Emotional: Go to bed by 10 pm and wake up by 6:15 am (I need lots of sleep)
Family Goals:
  • Spiritual: Do devotions once a week (what started all of this!)
  • Physical: Get back to our Sunday morning activity like hiking, riding bikes, etc
  • Mental: Use only kind words and watch our tone of voice
  • Emotional: Play a game once a week
So, we are off and running. We had our first devotions last week and Emery checked out about 2 nanoseconds into it, but Amelia loved and so did Ian and I. My book for this month is Birth Order by Kevin Lehman, I'm way behind, but hope to catch up soon :) And, because the weather was AWESOME this weekend we went to the park and ate breakfast this Sunday. YEAH! Just wait and ask me in September how things are going :)

4 comments:

The African Groggs said...

hey thanks for the motivation!! i am so unmotivated today and just want to drink coke...but not anymore :) i think i might copy your goals :) go ian by the way. jon would love to hop on that train...well, bike :)

Rachael Schepemaker said...

First, you are the most disciplined person I know so give yourself some credit :-)

Second, I am eagerly awaiting for that book at the library. Stephanie Naimo recommended it to me. Right now I am reading "How to make your child mind without losing yours" by Lehman.

stephanie said...

yeah, i need to be better about pretty much everything on your list... specifically family devotions. and bennett pretty much checks out right away too. he'd rather launch himself off of furniture than listen to a story. i'm trying to figure out how to make it more creative.

and i second rachael. you ARE so incredibly disciplined. i can learn a lot from you!

Lisa said...

I'm with reasa- thanks for the motivation! This is awesome, Erin. And how cool that Ian is doing that! Great to see you at church this past weekend. :)