There is a power in high goals. There is a dynamic power in setting the best as our goal, for the very act of reaching for excellence strengthens us, and remakes us beyond our expectations.
We tend to become what we aim at.
Pound that deep into your mind by saying it over and over again—we tend to become what we aim at.
Say that for young people, making plans for their lives. Aim low, and you’ll likely hit low. Aim high, and that’s likely where you’ll end.
When you choose a goal, you determine a destination.
Say that for marriage—if our goal is a life of shared joy, lived together, then the very act of reaching for that will enrich our lives, and we will be the chief benefactors of our own high goals.
But if our goal is simply to make do, to endure, to prolong mediocrity, then we will be sentenced together to sharing the misery of that low achievement.
Say it for the ministry of our churches. What do we want our churches to be?
What kind of enthusiasm do we want there? What joy in giving, serving, and worshiping?
We will become what we aim at. This is the very essence of religion. God is the Highest and the Best, drawing us up out of our lesser selves. Jesus Christ is the best example of what human life can be like. That is why we worship. We reach up for the best, leaving our porches and breakfast tables and newspapers, reaching up to worship.
The act of worship is a response to the upward pull of God’s goodness toward Jesus Christ. Every offering of the best that we make whether it be singing that soars, poetry that inspires, beauty that inspires, or worship that stirs lifts us anew each day out of little personal swamps of despair and into the presence of God.
We’re in a contest that will go on as long as we live as we’re pulled between the highest and the lowest, between our best and our worst.
But as God is our Helper, the very setting of godly personal goals is the point at which the outcome is largely decided.
So, because in every area of life we tend to become just what we reach for, I urge you with all the fervor of my being, in every moment of choosing, make it your goal to reach for the best!