I remember hearing and reading a few decades ago, “Set your goals high. Then, even if you fail to reach them, you will still have accomplished much.”

I suppose it sounded good to some folks… but I wasn’t one of them. “Why would you set goals so high that you knew you’d never reach them?” I wondered. It seemed to me more like self-deception than self-improvement. Maybe it was just that contrary streak that ran through me but I never could buy in to that approach. It was more effective to me to set high but attainable goals and do my darndest to reach them. That way, instead of consoling myself that I’d accomplished much trying to reach for the stars, I could endure the rock-solid, all-the-way-through-my-soul sort of disappointment that comes from knowing I was fully capable and just didn’t do it!

The truth is, I haven’t really done an awful lot of setting long-term goals for myself. Lots and lots and lots of daily to-do lists but most of my bigger projects have mostly been a matter of just deciding to go after something without a highly detailed, lock-step plan. Even though I’ve done a few things that a certain little tow-headed Todd County kid never thought he’d ever do, it’s mostly been a matter of following something that had sprouted in my heart. Not so much a finely tuned pursuit of carefully selected ambitions as just heading where it seemed God was leading.

I’d wanted to be a college professor ever since a month into my Introduction to Education course with Vernon Shown at Murray State University in 1975. But it wasn’t until I had a bunch of knucklehead sophomores at Calloway County High School in 1984 that I knew the time had come for me to make the change. Being a college prof meant earning a PhD so when Ohio State University offered me a fellowship, I went to OSU. Earning that degree was just about the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life but it wasn’t ambition nearly as much as it was simply getting my union card so I could teach college.

Once again, I wasn’t shooting for the stars, just following what unfolded as the course of my life. There is, though, one particular ambition that is mighty lofty: trying to be a true Christian, a genuine disciple of the Carpenter.

I’ve drawn a few splinters, made a mess of things more than once, and possibly have served more as an object lesson in grace than as a role model of righteousness. But… that is still the goal.

While reading in Ephesians this morning, I was struck—yet again—with Paul’s admonition: “… put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Man, talk about shooting for the stars! Talk about impossible goals! Talk about going way beyond!!!

“Created to be like God.”

Sounds pretty much impossible, doesn’t it? Like something we could never accomplish? And yet… there it is. In bold, plain, simple language. “Righteous and holiness.” Yep, exactly that. Still that. Always been the goal, always will be if we are sincere about following Jesus. Much easier to just go to church, pay lip service, and continue living like the creatures of the world we were before our supposed conversion.

I know that I’ve still got quite a ways to go. I know that I’ll come up shorter than a turtle trying to climb a fence post—but I’m not giving up. It’s the reason I was made a new self sixty years ago.

And I know that God’s still working on this old lump of coal… and He’s given me a Spirit of power, not one of fear. You know, that old, “through Him I can do all things” thing.