At the beginning of this year God spoke to me an explained the difference between goals and a prophetic vision. Goals come from us, based on our wants; prophetic visions come from the Lord based on his perfect plan for us. The Bible does not tell us to be goal-oriented, the Bible tells us to search for the prophetic vision for our lives. 

As I look around and, as I searched my own heart, I find that many of us are always chasing and always dissatisfied. We always feel that we are not doing enough and that we are not where we are supposed to be, so we chase after things, we do, we try this and, we try that, but can’t shake the feeling of failure and the feeling of not doing enough. 

Even professional singers, athletes, actors, etc. people who are, obviously successful and accomplish so much, are always chasing for more. It is never enough! If they won 4 NBA championships, they are chasing Jordan’s six championships. If somebody is making a million dollars a year, they want to double that, if somebody won an Oscar, they want another one, if somebody has a 10-million-dollar-house, they want to go for the 20-million-dollar one. How many times have you heard the expression “go after your dreams?” It sounds like the right thing to do; we hear it so much it must be right. But Salomon tells us, 

I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 14 I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.  15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. 16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind. 18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. Ecclesiastes 1:12-18 (ESV)

The question is, why can we not be at peace with what we have? and, why can we not find joy with what we do? Well, if we feel that we must always chase after things and, if we are taught to be ambitious, this chasing will be a never-ending nightmare. Dissatisfaction will also be never ending. If our joy and peace is conditional to what we accomplished and what we gain, we will never find joy nor peace; we will always feel like failures. 

I am dealing with this sense of failure myself. I was told a few months ago that somebody as talented as I, should be way ahead in ministry. By now I should have recorded plenty of music, I should have been the pastor of a big church, a large building, and a congregation of thousands. I should have written plenty of books too, have a doctoral degree and so on. Let’s be realistic, there are a few things I wanted to accomplish in life that did not happen. I am now 53-years of age and some of those things are not happening. Honestly, when I look at my life, in the natural, it seems like I have been regressing and not progressing. My life is filled with sin, mistakes, bad decisions, and the list goes on and on. Failure is written all over my heart. 

At the same time, it is a contradiction because the last two years, since the pandemic started, I have learned to experience peace and joy like never before in my life. I am debt free; I live in a beautiful $600,000 plus dollar home that is paid for, I have a beautiful smoking hot wife, I have a job where I enjoy great favor that gives me enough income to pay all the bills in our home, I enjoy golf, I feel healthier that I have felt in a long time, I am listening to God and writing like never before, etc. So, what’s wrong? Why this sense of failure? 

To be continued…