Hope for Reaching Our Ethical Goals
The need to maintain hope is so important for human beings in order that they will keep on aiming at their goals. Last night as I watched President Obama give his farewell address after eight years of service I realized how important hope is to continuing to reach for political and national goals. From start to finish President Obama is an idealist, believing in the possibility of the individual to make a difference in a democracy. At a time when many people feel disillusioned about our human capacity to effect change our outgoing president encouraged us to continue to have the "audacity to hope," as well as to believe we can change things for the better.
We have the same need to maintain hope in our individual lives of faith. Sometimes looking back at our inability to make progress over time, we are tempted to give up. We may have set goals that we believed were attainable and fell flat on our face in reaching them. But if we truly believe that the goals we set for relating our faith to our life are godly and we believe God is in our lives, we should not hesitate to “keep on keeping on.”
It is important of course that our goals for ethical living be S.M.A.R.T. They do need to be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based. An example of a smart goal in growing in relating faith and life is spend at least one hour a week volunteering for a church or another agency. Once the opportunity has been secured, then specific ways of continuing to challenge one’s self can be articulated. If it is teaching Christian education to middle school students, you may specify further that you will use at least one example from your life to share how your faith was reflected in your life to the students. When I think about S.M.A.R.T. goals having to do with growing in relating faith and life, I often think along daily lines. I might challenge myself to find at least one time a day to express gratitude to someone whom we encounter. The possibilities of bringing about change in how we approach living each day are endless.
It is truly the fact that human beings are creatures of habit that sometimes limits my view of change. I know for myself that homeostasis, the way things have always been, is desirable for me much of the time. But we are not just like my dog, Jersey, who finds it nearly impossible to change her daily routine. We are thinking human beings, who have the innate possibility of dreaming dreams and working toward change. So the fact that we are creatures of habit should give us some hope. If we can accomplish one of our spiritual or ethical goals for one week, then there is hope that we can make it part of our new routine. If we are blessed with a resilient faith and we live daily with God in our lives, there is hope for change tomorrow.
For ethical living, we must always keep our hopes high! Let us set our goals smartly, but high enough that we are challenged enough to make each day count!
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