What a helpful exercise it has been this past year! So as to keep it from being a wasted effort, Matt suggested we review it together each quarter and see if we were making progress and evaluate adjustments necessary to keep moving forward in the year by the grace of God. I remember one of the times we went through it, Schaeffer was very new. I wondered if I'd be able to keep my eyes open as we went through each question :), but it was just what I needed. I need help, with or without a newborn, to keep "grasp[ing] the heights of His plans for [me]."
This year, we're inviting our Stella girl to join us. We are helping her establish some spiritual age-appropriate goals. Not because we're trying to give some false assurance to her still unconverted heart that she is capable of becoming moral enough to earn God's favor. We're doing it to help show her the humility in such an exercise. None of us "hit the mark." But the main reason we're having her do it is because we want her to see the One who does hit the mark. He lived a perfect life that never needed improved upon. His active obedience simultaneously condemns and offers hope. For every way we fall short, He kept God's standard perfectly. We want this to help her realize her desperate need to cling to Christ for salvation.
As we spill much ink filling the blanks for the year ahead, we ask: "Lord, please set our minds on things above not on things on this earth. We want to see things from where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. We don't want to be earth bound and content with where we are during this short sojourn here -- playing with mud-pies as it were when all of the blessings in Christ are available to us. Give us eyes to grasp the heights of your plans for us which are nothing less than Christlikeness. Make us like your Son. Help us mortify the flesh with all of it's sinful desires. Lord, we need Christ!!!!"
