Episode 7: Goal Setting God's Way: Trading Worldly Resolutions for Kingdom Assignments (Proverbs 16:3)

As the new year begins, the world screams at us to set bigger goals, hustle harder, and chase a vision of success defined by worldly standards. 

But what if God is inviting us to a different path? What if He's asking us to trade our self-reliant ambition for Spirit-led assignments?

In this powerful episode, Dr. Lee contrasts the world's way of goal setting (like SMART goals) with a biblical framework that prioritizes surrender, trust, and obedience. This isn't just another episode about New Year's resolutions; it's a guide for faith-led leaders on how to truly commit their work to the Lord and allow Him to establish their plans.

If you're tired of the endless cycle of hustle and burnout and want to approach your goals with peace, clarity, and true kingdom impact, this episode will provide the permission and the practical steps you need.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• The spiritual dangers of relying solely on worldly goal-setting frameworks like SMART goals.
• How to shift your focus from "What do I want to achieve?" to "Who does God want me to become?"
• A practical, 3-step biblical framework for goal setting: Surrender through Prayer, Commit Your Work, and Walk in Obedience.
• Why you should hold your plans with an open hand, ready for God's divine detours.
• The crucial difference between asking God to bless your plans and asking Him to let you in on His.

"Our job is not to force the original plan, but to stay in step with the Planner."

Bible Verses Mentioned:

• Proverbs 16:3
• James 4:13-15
• Matthew 6:33
• Philippians 4:6-7
• Proverbs 19:21
• Jeremiah 29:11

Connect with Dr. Lee and the Regulated Roots Community:

Visit our new website: regulatedroots.com

Join our FREE Skool Community: The Regulated Roots Academy is a free community for faith-led entrepreneurs to connect, learn, and grow. Access free courses, resources, and bi-weekly Q&A sessions with Dr. Lee. 

Follow on TikTok: @leechelseacordell

Connect on LinkedIn: Dr. Lee Cordell

Transcript

CSKS Episode 7

Welcome to today's episode and happy New Year.

So we're gonna just start off with a prayer as we do, and then we're gonna get into our topic today of goal setting God's Way. So, I'm so excited for this. Our anchoring verse this episode is Proverbs 16, three. Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. God, I just pray that today you help us to direct and order our steps according to your will and your Word and your way. I pray that you meet us in this space where we're at, right here, and you help soften our hearts to what it is that you're calling us to do in 2026.

Help us to receive this message. Help me to clearly deliver this message. Help me to be a channel and an instrument of yours so that your children and the leaders, and the executives and the entrepreneurs who are working so diligently in your kingdom can be truly supported by the words that I'm about to share.

I pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, so goal setting God's way. What does it look like to trade our worldly resolutions for kingdom assignments? What I want to just start by centering is the absolute. Just intense pressure that we can feel on January 1st. Now, it's January 2nd as I'm recording this.

, But yesterday I was working on several client tasks, and as I was working, I noticed I was feeling a lot of pressure and I was like, where is this coming from? What's going on? And I realized, it, it it's that worldly pressure, the world's screaming about New Year, new you, and setting aggressive SMART goals and creating vision boards filled with like worldly success.

And I've noticed that anytime I start to feel that intense pressure. That is the world saying, Hey, you need to speed up, you need to do more, be achieving and striving and driving and succeeding, and y'all like i'm a growth strategist. My husband and I run a business, an agency where we help other business owners and leaders, executives both internally and externally grow what it is that they are creating out in the world.

And so there is this like really strong tension that can happen and it creates this very like. Internal conflict for faith led leaders, around are we gonna follow the ambitious plans that the world is telling us to create and then ask God to bless those plans? Or are we going to actually take the time to really get still and get quiet and listen for that innate Holy Spirit- led call from God. Are we truly seeking his plans for us and asking for the courage to follow those plans?

 So I want to actually share a story of what happened yesterday after I experienced that moment of oh my gosh, I'm feeling so pressured.

I'm feeling like I have to get all these things done. I'm feeling like I'm doing all these tasks and nothing's like getting completed. And if you're a leader who has, a to-do list that really never ends, like you check one thing off and when you check that off, it leads to something else.

This can be really. You probably know what I'm talking about, right? Like, you feel me right now.

So I was having this sense around, 4:00 PM of, oh my gosh, I'm just feeling so much pressure. And so I went into the kitchen and I was talking to my husband and I was like, you know, I didn't journal this morning.

I didn't do my Bible, study this morning. And I know better. And maybe that's part of what's going on here. And I said, I'm feeling resistance to going and sitting in the stillness and the quiet and writing. And I actually think that's probably part of what's going on. And so I did that. I was like, let me sit and go upstairs in the stillness.

Now granted, there's five people in our house right now. Everyone's on break, so it's been loud. I don't think I've had a moment alone in the house or not driving from one place to another for probably two weeks. So there's a lot of overstimulation that's been happening, and so prioritizing that, still quiet time was so important and it wasn't perfect. And I wanna pull that out here right now just as a immediate lesson of like, it wasn't perfect. I could still hear some noise in the background. There was still a kid in the other room.

But I was able to at least create a little bit of solace, like a little container of it's not completely quiet, I'm not completely alone, and this is what I can do in this moment, right?

So. I did that and God so clearly talked to me about, a Bible passage that he had led me to earlier in the day in second Samuel, and it was chapter two and it was talking about David and when David is ascending the throne as the king of Judah, while Saul, who has been, killed at this point while his sons and his progeny are like trying to still take over and get Judah back because they they want all of it. Right.

And David is, doing what we're talking about right here when it comes to planning. David continues over and over and over to submit his will to God and to ask God for what he wants the plan to be.

And if you're not familiar with the story of David, I actually started watching House of David last night. It's absolutely phenomenal. I encourage you to go watch that. If you haven't, it's on Prime, I believe. But I was watching the first couple of episodes, and when you're watching this, it's giving this picture of David and just like how he's placed in this position from the start, that isn't one that you would think that would lead to leadership. Okay. And yet, at every step, through every trauma he's experiencing, he's following and listening. He's getting quiet, he's getting still, and he's listening to God.

And so there's a line in the show where David's mother is talking to him and she's trying to teach him how to listen for God. And she says to him, deep calls to deep.

And so this is the central tension, right? Is that the world is consistently trying to get us to stay superficial and stay in the moment and not think about the long term and not think about the future.

This, I think, is showcased no better than in the SMART goal framework. And look, if you love the SMART goal framework as a leader, I love that for you. Okay? But today when we're talking about goal setting, we are not just talking about setting goals, we're talking about receiving assignments.

Much like David, instead of being like, Hey, David wanted to be a warrior, David wanted to go fight in the Army. Instead of wanting to be a warrior and Saul's kingdom, God had a different plan for him. God said, I don't want you to be a warrior in a kingdom. I want you to be a warrior that rules a kingdom.

So we're not just talking about setting goals, we're talking about receiving the assignments that God has placed on us and exploring a biblical framework for approaching this new year. One that trades worldly hustle for holy alignment.

Alright, so when we talk about this SMART goal framework, if you're not familiar with this, most, most leaders are at this point and some younger ones, I don't know, maybe they're not teaching this anymore in business school.

I'm not sure, but the SMART goal framework is one that's used a lot of times in project management and planning and goal setting.

It stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. The whole idea of a SMART goal framework is that you get really clear on what it is that you want to see happen.

You clearly identify how you can measure if it's working or not. You make sure that the goal is achievable. So it's a reasonable, rational goal. You ensure that the goal that you are setting is relevant to what it is that like broader perspective you're trying to do. And you also set time limits on it.

You wanna have clear delivery dates or deadlines. So none of that is inherently evil. There's nothing in that that you're like, oh my gosh, that's immoral. Right. It's a tool. The issue with it is that it is fundamentally self-reliant. It places the burden of achievement entirely on our own strength and understanding.

Because if you think about this, a SMART goal approach is going to, cause us to probably cut ourselves off from a lot of the options that God would want us to have.

So in terms of this s this specific, how many times in life have you asked for something from God and he's not given it to you? And he's given you something different and better.

How many times have you fully submitted your will to the Lord, and you've said, Jesus, your will not mine, like, decrease me so you may increase, show me what it is that you want to have happen and you really lean into that and maybe you never have. All right, and this is not a moment to shame yourself if you're sitting here going, have I ever really done that?

It's just a moment of potential conviction of, "Hey, you know, I've never really asked God to tell me what the plan should be. I've never prayed for that. I've just always brought my plans to him and asked him to make them happen."

But if you can even think of a time, like I can think of a time where I specifically prayed for things and God was like, bet I'm gonna give that to you.

And you're like, oh man, that's not the way that I would've wanted that to happen. And then I can think of times that I prayed for things and God did not give them to me, and he gave me something so much better.

So one of the things I did last week was I went and reviewed my journals from end of 2024 all the way through 2025, and I prayed for a lot of financial things through that.

And again, I was always submitting them to God's will. That's something that I am excited to be able to say is like my word of the year for 2025 was discipline and discipleship. So like that's what I did. I was like, Hey God, this is what I want, and also , please do with it what you will.

Those financial goals did not come to fruition the way that I desired and. I'm so glad they didn't, because I learned so much in that timeframe that I wouldn't have had access to, like the wisdom that I gained and the understanding of how God works was so profound, and if God had answered my prayer in the specific way that I had prayed for it, like none of that would've come about because I learned all of those things because the financial things did not come to fruition the way that I desired them to.

And I was like, thank you so much, God, for not like meeting this goal. Thank you for not bringing this goal to fruition. So measurable is that second piece and the thing about measurable goals is that a lot of times we create external outcomes that will show if the thing happened or not.

If I was able to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish or not, again, hear that it's not, what does God want to accomplish? It's what do I wanna see happen in the world? So there's limited vision in that and there's also a lot of anxiety around it because like then, okay, well if those metrics don't happen, if those outcomes don't happen, if those things don't happen, that's on me.

Because I didn't do enough. So one of the things that we teach in our academy and at our agency is, look, we're gonna measure external metrics. We're gonna measure your views, we're gonna measure your follower account, we're gonna measure your income, we're gonna measure your sales page visits.

Like we're gonna measure a lot of the things that you don't have exact specific control over. But what we're gonna focus on are the internal metrics, are the tasks, are the activities that we know that if you do these in a God LED way, something good is gonna happen. God will use it for good.

SMART goals encourage us to look at did I make $200,000 this year?

Did I increase my followers by 25%? Did I, start having more comments on my videos? Alright, well somebody could shut down the platform you're on. Remember beginning of 2025 with TikTok where they were like, Hey, we're, this might not exist anymore. You don't know what's gonna happen in the outside world, but what you do know is how you can show up and the activities that you can participate in that then will likely lead to things.

So some of the biblical internal metrics are like, am I waking up and praying every morning versus grabbing my phone? Am I working up in journaling and the way I journal is I write a letter to God every morning. I literally write, good morning, God, and I start off with gratitude and thanking him for everything.

And I think I wrote like almost 300 times last year as the first sentence after Good morning. God, thank you for waking me up. Thank you for keeping my family safe through the night. If you're starting from that perspective and you are doing things that deepen your relationship with God and increase that intimacy and allow you to better understand him and allow him to better understand you. Like he already understands everything about you, but it's more you're letting him, like you're telling it to him, you're showing it to him. Right.

One of the very first things I ask the leaders that we work with when they start telling me that they're struggling is I'm like, have you been reading or listening to your Bible?

Have you been praying? Have you been, doing the rosary? Have you been going to church? Who are you surrounding yourself with? Like what are you putting in? Right?

I could go off on a whole tangent about this, but that's why measurable in this SMART goal framework doesn't always work because you're measuring the wrong things.

A lot of the time. You're measuring external things and worldly things instead of internal things and godly things.

So the A in SMART goals is achievable. So the issue with achievable goals is like by whose standards? By whose standards?

I have a dear entrepreneur friend who had God lay a goal, outcome on their heart, and they're like, this is a 10 x. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited about that for you because a 10 x is usually God, like a two x is very human, right? Like, oh, I could double my business.

No, like a 10 x is like, I can't do that without God. Goals that feel God-sized, when those come to fruition, you know that it wasn't in your own doing. So the amount of pride you're able to have around that, the amount of credit you're able to take for the success if you're maintaining that relationship with God, like yes, the work you put in to bring it to fruition like you co-created with him.

But that was not a reasonable goal. That was not something that the average person would look at and go, oh yeah, you could totally achieve that in a year, in a month, in a day, in a however long. So when God lays goals and visions and outcomes on your heart, and he's like, I'm going to make this happen.

I go back to again, second Samuel, that story of David, like when Samuel comes to the house of Jesse and he's like talking to all the sons because God's led him there to anoint the next king, and he's going down the line of all the sons who look like the sons that should be chosen to be the next king and samuel turns to Jesse and says, you didn't like you're disobeying. God, where is your other son? Because David's off in the fields shepherding the sheep. And so he's like, go get your other son. And when David comes and meets with Samuel there, Samuel anoints him as king and everybody is looking at that scenario going, what is this?

What is going on? There's no way that this can come to fruition. And this is what I love to add. This is how you know you've got a god-sized vision, is that you say, God's the only one who can make this happen.

The God sized vision that God has laid on my heart and my husband's heart I mean, what he has called us to do in the next several years, when people see that happen, when it comes to fruition, the answer is gonna be, but God. When people are like, how did this happen?

God is good, and we obeyed. That's the answer.

When we think about the R in SMART goals, relevance, again, so often God leads us on, these treks, these paths that are very much set up to look like detours. Like he gives you a vision and then he takes you in a direction that seems very, off the beaten path into the woods, so to speak.

He leads Moses to the edge of a massive sea without telling him he is gonna split it. He leads Joshua to Jericho and tells him to walk around a building, playing a trumpet. He leads his disciples and his followers to do things that oftentimes place them in harm's way that look like they're not in the direction that makes sense.

So when you look at this relevance piece, sometimes God will be like, Hey, do this thing, and you're like, what on earth does this have to do with what I'm trying to do right now? And it's like, oh. You need to get to the other side of it to understand, and you might not even understand when you get to the other side of it, but if, god's in that stillness and that quiet, laying a goal on your heart that you're like, I don't get how this connects to everything else that I'm doing.

And he's calling to do it, do it.

The last piece is this time bound piece, and this is the piece that I, ooh, I'm gonna forget her last name, but priscilla, she's a, a brilliant speaker and pastor, and she says that deadlines are dangerous because they tell us, they tell the devil where to meet us.

Deadlines are dangerous because they tell the devil where to meet us. And there's actually a biblical passage that I wanna read here, James four 13 through 15. James writes and he's talking to Christians. He's not talking to people who don't follow Jesus. So that's really important to keep in context here.

Okay? He says, now listen, you who say today or tomorrow, we will go to this or that city. Spend a year there. Carry on business and make money. Instead, you ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.

This is really important because I so often see people creating vision boards and setting intentions and delivery dates or deadlines, decision points for when they're going to stop doing something or start doing something. If God is calling you to do something, do it till it's done and start when he tells you to start. If God clearly says tomorrow, wake up and go do this tomorrow morning, wake up early and go do it. If God says, Hey, this is the thing that I want you to go after, don't tell yourself, Hey, I'm gonna get three to five years into this, and then if by five years it's not working, I'm gonna quit.

I see this a lot. Like setting an income goal of, oh, I'm gonna hit X amount of dollars by the end of 2026. Well, what if you're only 20% of the way there on December 31st? But if you kept going until January 15th, you'd get a hundred percent of the way there and even beyond. But you've set an arbitrary goal. You've said, well, I've spent enough time doing this.

There's again, some, pride. There's a lot of assumption in that, that you are the timekeeper.

If instead you say, I'm gonna do this until God calls me to stop or gives me further direction. Or tells me to go even faster. If you say, if it's the Lord's will, this is how I would like to live and do things, and I would like for this to happen by a specific date. I would like this to happen by a specific time, and whether it does or it doesn't- God, like, tell me when to start. Tell me when to stop. Tell me when to go. Tell me when to move. Tell me when to stay still tell me when to wait.

This is not a call to inaction, by the way, it's a call to surrender. It is assuming a posture of holding our plans with an open hand like sometimes God wants to take something out of your hand and put something different in it. And if you're closed fisted, he can't get to it.

So cup it, hold it with intention, with care, so it doesn't just like fall out and be willing to let it go.

This is a lesson I have learned so deeply over the last several years, but particularly this last year as the word that God gave me was discipline. He was like, I need you to just learn how to obey and to do it in a way where you have better self-control. I need you to be in better command of yourself. Not people please and not be nice, and also not be complaining and grumbling. I need you to have better control over your emotional state and your nervous system. I need you to be able to handle tougher things so that this vision that I've placed in front of you, this goal, this outcome that you can see when you close your eyes.

You can feel and touch and taste it like when you pause and go deep so that it can come to fruition.

If you went and got still and quiet today and went and prayed and God told you, Hey, this thing that you've decided you want for 2026, yes, you can have it and it's gonna take you five times as long, would you still do it? Because if the answer to that is no, then you need to go talk with God.

Because the ultimate goal for us is to, as it's written in Matthew 6: 33, and this is one of my favorite verses, if you, follow me on TikTok, this is the verse that is in my profile page. This is the verse that really is the foundation of our podcast. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Before we set any goals for our business, our family, our health, our like finances, our primary goal has to be to seek God's kingdom. It's the filter through which every other plan must pass. So the invitation I am giving you today is to shift from worldly goal setting, which is what do I want to achieve and to shift to kingdom goal setting, which asks, who does God want me to become?

And not only who does God want me to become, but how does he want me to become that person? How does he want me to bring his kingdom to earth as it is in heaven through my leadership, through my entrepreneurship, through my executive position?

So that leads us into a personal explanation of what seeking first the Kingdom looks like as a leader. When you look at your organization, is your organizational goal to hit a revenue target? And if that is the organizational goal, like if that is their SMART goal, hit this revenue target by this date.

Okay, well, for you, is your goal to hit that target at all costs? Or is it to steward your team in a way that truly disciples them? Is it to create a culture of integrity? Knowing that the financial success follows that, are you willing to maybe not hit a metric in the short term to make things better in the long term?

In your own finances, is your goal to maximize your personal profit, or is it to steward the company's resources with generosity and to grow and deepen in your wisdom and your discernment in stewarding those resources and in trusting God as your ultimate provider?

I like to say God is the source. We are a resource and we co-create assets with God that get stewarded in a way that either serves the world or serves the kingdom. So how are you stewarding?

In your strategy as a business owner or as the chief marketing officer or as the CEO, are you chasing the latest market trends? Are you up at night anxiously setting goals around the tasks that need to get done in order to sustain your company? Or are you praying for discernment to solve the problems that God's called your business to solve?

Because those two things, like you can't do both at once, like those are dissonant. One is being done from this very hyper aroused, like I must figure it out on my own. Again, that pride, that anxiety, that limited vision, that worldly way, that superficial way. And the other is taking the time to drop in and go deep and let God's depth call to yours.

Let the Holy Spirit talk to your soul and slow you down. Show you what truly gets to be the focus. So if we are not focusing on SMART goals, what are we focusing on? Right? We're not focusing on SMART goals. What are we focusing on?

Well, I wanna give you a three step framework for kingdom goal setting.

Okay? Super easy. Let me rephrase that. It's super simple. It's not super easy. So the first is surrendering through prayer. I love this. Full transparency. I love Manus ai. Today, for example, I fed in 17 of my Facebook posts and I was like, analyze these and pull out some points for me for this episode.

I was actually supposed to be recording an episode with a guest who was unable to make it. So I was like, well what do I wanna talk about on January 2nd? And I stopped and I prayed and I asked, I was like, God, what do you want me to talk about? And it was. This. And so I went in and I was like, Hey, based on our podcast, you've got all this information, of what we've created and what we've done and how I teach, can you help me pull out a framework?

So it pulled out three bible verses that I was so excited about. And this is how you know that you're co-creating with AI and not allowing it to create for you. Again, you're not allowing the world to create, you and God are like coming up with a plan together and then using a tool to help make it better.

It gave me Philippians chapter four, verses six through seven. My kids will laugh at that, not that they're listening to this podcast. Maybe they are, I don't know. But if anyone just did the like hand bobble thing. So the verse goes, do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your request to God.

So the process begins not with a spreadsheet, not with like a planner, but with prayer. We bring our desires, we bring our ambitions, we bring our fears, we bring our anxieties, we bring our struggles and confusion, our deepest desires. Our longings, we bring those to God with thanksgiving and with a softened heart.

So I want to encourage you to spend time dedicated in prayer. Before you write down any goals, I want you to ask God, what is on your heart for me, God, for my family, for my business? For my personal development, for my health this year, God, show me where my desires align with yours and show me where they don't. Okay.

So I mentioned that journaling process. I do. I've been journaling for years. I have probably 30 journals that are filled at least three quarters of the way through every page with.

Journaling. It wasn't until the last year and a half that I really started talking to God that I truly believe that this has shifted like everything for me, because I can go back and evaluate and look at the growth and look at the transformation that's happening because of God, because of the intimacy and the development of the relationship.

So I invite you to either aloud or typing on your phone. Or just quietly in the stillness of your mind from your heart or writing. I love writing to really sit down and talk with God about your goals. And bring him all of it. In one of the versions of this verse, it says, by prayer and supplication.

This version says, by prayer and petition, petitioning and supplicating is you going and making a case. Like, go and make a case before God and then ask him to show you where your case is out of alignment. Go seek, go ask, go knock. Go tell him what you want. Tell him why you're afraid it might not happen.

Tell him what you're worried will not come to fruition. Tell him what you're afraid will come to fruition. Tell him where you're not sure if it's the right thing or not. Tell him where you're confused. Tell him where you're grieving and angry from, how things didn't go the way you wanted him to go last year.

Submit all of that worldly stuff to him and ask him to purify it. Ask him to help sanctify your goal setting process so that it is more the way Jesus would do it.

So that's the first step, surrendering through prayer. The second step is committing your work to him. So in the prayer that I prayed at the beginning of this, I prayed proverbs, chapter 16 verse three, commit to the Lord, whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.

Once you have a sense of direction from prayer, commit to the work. You're not just saying, Hey, God, can you do this for me? What you're doing is you're saying, God, I'm committing this work to you. Once you've written down the goals and the assignments, and you've got your plan.

Pray over that plan. God, I commit this work to you. I release my grip on the outcome. I trust you to establish this plan according to your will and in your divine timing. Did you hear that part in your divine timing?

Okay. Once you've got discernment on what it is he's calling you to do, lay it at the foot of the cross. And say, God, you are the project manager. You are the orchestrator. You are the one who can see everything and who knows everything and who exists outside of time. Tell me what to do and I will follow. And I commit this to you. I offered this work up over this year as an offering to you. Thy will be done.

Transfer it back to him, and then this is where the co-creation happens, right? Because you're like, okay, I'm going to actively be walking in faith in obedience in step three.

So Proverbs chapter 19, verse 21, many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. So after you've prayed and you've committed this back to him, and you are like, I am going to co-create with you, you gotta move. You are gonna take the next right step, but you're gonna hold that plan really loosely in your hands like this.

Okay? So that way at any point he needs to take it out. He needs to shift something, he needs to change something. He can, you've got to be open to divine detours. He may change the plan. He may close a door. He may ask you to wait. He may ask you to speed up. He may ask you to pull somebody else in.

He may ask you to say yes again to somebody that you've said yes to five times, and every time they start to walk with you, they stop. He may ask you to invite them in again. He may ask you to cut something off. He may not ask you to cut something off. He may just cut it off for you.

God may change the plan. Your goal is not to stick to the original plan. Your goal is not to force the plan. Your goal is to stay in step with the divine planner.

This was the most profound thing I pulled away from doing that evaluation of my journals over the last year. I noticed at the end I would have my Thanksgiving and I would pray my gratitudes, and then I would say, God, I humbly and faithfully pray for these things in accordance to your will, and that I would list what I wanted.

And so often I was saying, God, help me do this. Help me do that. Help me do this. Help me do that. Help me do this. Help me be stronger. Help me create this, help me release this debt, help me make this relationship better, help me. And I was like. Wow. I'm really not letting God do much without me. And I think that this is something that a lot of leaders struggle with.

I'm not letting God do much without me. If everything has to happen and come to fruition through me, then I am limiting God. Immediately I started shifting the way that I. Practice prayer and petition and supplication on a daily basis and my journaling.

And instead I say, God, I know you don't need me for this. I know you don't need me for this, and you have chosen me to co-create here with you. You have chosen me to walk alongside you as the planner and to be a task master with you. You have chosen to give me gifts by your grace in these seven key areas, these graceful gifts.

By the way, we're gonna be talking a lot more about next week, but you've laid this program on my heart around these seven gifts, and you are leading me to understand how you have gifted me in these areas. So God, use me, use my gifts, develop them, and use them in a divinely directed way.

And if I don't need to be a part of it, that's fine. I don't have to be the Mastermind. That's your job. So this is where checking in with God, not just to review progress, not to just be like, oh, how much have we gotten done? What have we accomplished in regards to these goals that we've set?

But pausing and checking in and asking God, am I still on the right path? Are we still on the right path together? Is there anything you want me to adjust? Is there anything you want me to change? One of the questions that we ask our clients on a consistent basis is, what do you want more of? What do you want less of?

What do you want different? And what is just right?

So that's a four part prayer prompt you could use if you desire God, what do you want me to do more of? What do you want me to do less of? What do you want me to do different? What do you want me to keep doing? What am I doing just right. And again, this isn't a moment to shame yourself or to try to speed yourself up.

And by the way, if you ask the world these questions, you're gonna get misaligned answers. Okay. The world's gonna tell you to post more. The world's gonna tell you to be more likable or nice. The world's gonna tell you to not say certain things. The world's gonna tell you to try to cater towards different audiences because that's where the money is.

These are questions for people who are God-centered around you. These are not questions for every stranger. Or person who does not know your heart and who their heart's not centered in God's kingdom. Don't ask these questions to somebody who isn't seeking God the same way you are.

Who doesn't love Jesus the same way you do? And I don't mean same in a like the same level or the exact same way. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying who doesn't value their relationship with God first, who doesn't prioritize that Because they will give you answers that will lead you astray.

So we're shifting. If we truly want to seek first the kingdom of God in 2026, we have to shift. We get to shift from these self-reliant, SMART goals to this surrendered three step process of praying and petitioning, of committing and offering our plans to the Lord and obedience in our walk.

And in case this feels scary to you, in case this feels scary to you, I wanna remind you that God is not cruel. God is good. God is not trying to thwart your success. He's not trying to make it so you have less money or less people in your life or less prestige like he might be calling you in that direction, but it's not because he doesn't want you to be successful.

It's because he wants you to have kingdom success. He wants you to have eternal rewards. He wants you to store up treasures in heaven. He has better plans for you on earth and in heaven than you can ever imagine for yourself. So surrendering your goals to him is an invitation into his abundance, which is beyond imagination in comparison to the world's abundance.

I wanna end with a passage that I think just really sums this up about how God feels about us and how much he wants to plan with us, how much he wants to co-create with us, how much he wants to be able to use his divine authority and power in our lives if we will, like we have to will that we have to give him permission.

He honors our free will, so if we don't let him, he won't.

So Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future. I'm gonna say that again for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.

So this week, here's my invitation to you. Before you finalize your goals for the new year, even if you already have, take an hour, spend some time alone with God, and walk through these three steps. Surrender your plans to him, listen and gain wisdom and discernment through that surrender.

Then commit those plans to God and prepare to walk in co-creation in full faith with him. And I invite you to let this be the year that you stop asking God to bless your plans and you start asking him to let you in on his plans. I love you all and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the week, and I will see you next time.