What’s on your to-do list today? This week? What do you aim to accomplish yet this year? What about before you leave this world? Goals make us examine our hopes and dreams and help us prioritize how we want to invest our time, energy, and financial resources. Of course, all goals are ‘as unto the Lord,’ for we ultimately don’t have as much control as we think we might over our plans and future. As we recently evaluated some of our goals, some rose to a higher position of importance than others.

Paul came to the conclusion that not only his past, but all his future goals fell underneath just one surpassing goal, to know Jesus. In fact everything else fell so short of this one goal that he considered them “garbage” in comparison.

His goal is to be found “in him,” that is, immersed in Christ. When we are immersed in something we are connected in such a way that it becomes our identity, our purpose. Paul recognizes that any good comes not from himself but through faith it comes from Jesus. Oh that we would come to such knowledge, instead of thinking that we bring some inherent goodness on our own power, but rather know that all goodness comes from our trust in God.

Every goal has its reward and its price. Paul writes, “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” If we were to examine all the New Testament, we would find such references to suffering in every book. Instead of running away from suffering, Paul makes a goal of pursuing suffering when it leads him to knowing Jesus and making him known.

How about you? Not all suffering is of the Lord. Some suffering is more of inconvenience. I broke my ankle because I was in too much of a hurry on the ice. I wouldn’t call that suffering for the Lord. But there is that suffering that bears witness to Jesus, that advances his gospel, that leads us into deeper relationship with him. We shouldn’t be so quick to pray away that sort of suffering!

Knowing Jesus is a process, isn’t it? It takes more than a lifetime. Can you see all your other goals in their relationship to this one most important one?

“But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:13b-14