I (Neil) am an achiever. I love to complete tasks, get things done, log my progress, set new goals and then do the whole thing all over again with bigger goals. There’s nothing I love more at the end of the day than sitting down knowing it has been a productive day where I have moved the ‘ball a bit further down the field.’ I know that this is part of how God has created me and I celebrate a lot of these attributes, after all there’s nothing wrong with these things if they are done with God at the centre; they are principles we see repeated throughout the Scriptures.

However, the challenge with being an achiever is that we can be so focused on achieving something we can end up achieving something that God never asked us to reach for. The desire to complete, log, set and achieve can supersede the desire to follow God’s voice and be obedient. What I have learned is that what ‘achievement’ looks like to God can look very different to me. There are so many times in the Bible where people are doing exactly what God needed them to do but to the outside world it looked like they were doing either nothing or the wrong thing altogether;

• Noah builds a huge boat in a desert environment to save a world that doesn’t want to be saved
• Abram leaves his home and his father’s family in pursuit of a destination he doesn’t know
• Joshua circles a city for 7 days that he is supposed to defeat in war
• Gideon intentionally makes his army smaller before fighting his enemy
• Ezekiel, a prophet called to bring the people back to God, lay on his side for over 400 days
• Jesus, the saviour of the world, never built an army, never made a declaration of war, was seemingly inactive for 30 years of His life, died at the hands of His enemies and then went back to heaven 40 days later after He rose

I mean can you imagine being close to any of these situations and thinking that what these people were doing was productive or right? I would certainly have questions. But they were dong exactly what God had told them to do which makes them the most successful achievements they could have completed.

Success is not measured by our achievements, but by our obedience.

The reality for Janet and me is that we have struggled to gain any kind of rhythm over the last week or so. Ongoing challenges in other areas of our lives, a weekend away to visit family, and Janet gaining a pretty hefty head cold/flu has knocked that. It’s tough in those moments. I am steady in knowing what God has called us to, I wrote about this on the 12th March, but I have felt over this past week that I am wasting it because we don’t feel like we are making any progress.

Thankfully God knows me very well and this morning as I sat down to spend time with Him He encouraged me again with being patient and only doing what He had called us to do. These words from the book Janet and I have been reading really helped me this morning.

Most of us quit trying after six circles or twenty days or two failures. In case you missed the message the first time, if you keep trying, you are not failing. The only way you can fail is if you quit trying. If you’re still trying, even if you’re failing, you’re succeeding. God is honored when you don’t give up. God is honored when you keep trying. God is honored when you keep circling. Mark Batterson, the Circle Maker

In the middle of this time God spoke to me about a few things we need to keep pushing into once Janet is back on her feet; mainly around extending the borders of the footprint He is calling us to, including a couple of specific locations we think He is highlighting. I have also felt a desire to finish the book God called me to write documenting last year.

So…..I’ve now got plenty of things to work on this week – that’ll keep my achiever parts happy! 😂