Goal-setting for the new year:
Eight lessons from the Magi

The Feast of Epiphany or Little Christmas is one of the last celebrations of the Christmas season. While some traditions celebrate Epiphany on the second Sunday after Christmas, January 6, which is the 12th day of Christmas, is the date traditionally assigned to this feast day. When our children were growing up, we used to save some Christmas gifts for this special feast. We also move the camels and the wise men figures to the manger scenes with a rousing chorus of “We Three Kings.”

I have been struggling with writing 2015 goals for my personal life and my business at the same time as I was working on this Epiphany reflection. I believe God has a plan and purpose for my life, so I choose to consult Him to help me set my goals for the coming year. It struck me that the example of the three kings provides some timely wisdom for goal setting and those proverbial New Year’s resolutions.

The Epiphany story, presented in Matthew 2:2-12, opens with the introduction of the Magi from the East who comes to Jerusalem and asks, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”(Mt.2:2)

King Herod, who was the ruler in Jerusalem, was not happy about the questions the wise men asked. Herod called together Jewish leaders to explain to him what was foretold about the Messiah. They explained that in the writings of the Prophet Isaiah, the Messiah was said to be born in Bethlehem.

The Magi focused on their goal of finding the Messiah and headed on to follow this star which pointed to Bethlehem. Here’s how the example of the Magi helps me to understand how to set goals for the coming year.

God speaks in the natural.

Tradition holds that the Magi studied the stars either as a science or a religion. Their charting of the stars led them to discover this cosmic wonder which coincided with oral traditions regarding the birth of the Messiah. Over the years, there have been speculations as to what this cosmic event could have been. Comets, an alignment of the planets or a supernatural occurrence in the heavens have all been part of the speculations. When considering goals, it strikes me that God uses the natural world and our natural gifts to convey a plan and purpose for our lives.

I could decide to set a goal for myself of being a world-class skier. It’s not an impossible goal, if I plunged myself into ski instruction and spent every weekend on the slopes. But, given the fact that I am now 51 and have never been on skis and I hate spending hours in the cold, wet snow, it is unlikely that God is calling me to become a world-class skier. On the other hand, I do have natural and developed gifts for writing, and one of my goals is to use those gifts more to inspire others and to bring additional income into our household budget. When I look at my natural gifts, I can see a plan unfolding and set my goals accordingly.

Focus on the destination.

The Magi from the East plotted a course and kept going. They stopped in Jerusalem for a clarification, but then they fixed their eyes on following that star. In December of 2013, on my 50th birthday retreat, I set two goals for 2014: to publish my first book and to become a certified professional coach.

Through many discouraging and exhausting circumstances, I kept my eye on these goals. It was such a powerful experience, that I am being very careful about writing my goals for this year. You can reach your goals if you focus on your destination.

Dismiss distractions

For the Magi, stopping in Jerusalem for clarification was necessary, but King Herod’s panic over the threat of a newborn king was a distraction. They got the information they needed, set their sights on Bethlehem and just kept going.
For me, having a perfectly organized schedule and clean house was a distraction that kept me from writing my book. I had it in my head that I had to take care of all of our family details before I could focus my time on writing this book.
It wasn’t until I spoke to a coach who helped me to see that I could get by with basic order, that I saw my perfectionism was a distraction. I learned to dismiss a lot. Granted, I rarely entertained in 2014, because my house was a disaster, but I published my first book!

And when it was out of my hands at the printer, the first thing I did was a massive whole-house cleaning and organizing that is still giving me more energy and focus than I have had for years. Even worthy tasks can be a distraction. Dismiss them and just keep going!

Offer your gifts to God, even when you don’t understand them.

The Magi offered the baby Jesus gold, frankincense and myrrh. At the time, those seemed kind of funny gifts to give a baby, even if you thought he would one day be King. But in retrospect, those gifts were perfect and even proved to be prophetic.

Gold was an obvious choice of value for a king’s birth. The frankincense was used in priestly sacrificial offering. Jesus was the priest and the sacrifice of the New Covenant. Myrrh was oil that was used to anoint the dead for burial. It was a foretelling of Jesus’ death on the cross. All these gifts showed their worth at the proper time.

When we give our gifts to God, we may feel that they are worthless, but later it will all make sense. For many years, I lived a very quiet life of simply caring for my young children and helping my youngest daughter stay alive. Sometimes I questioned the value of the suffering. But I offered my service to my family as one of the only gifts I had to give. Spending this past year reflecting on those years of serving my family, I realized the impact it had in our lives and the lives of many others who needed to see value in their own struggles.

Adore God.

The Magi were important men, but they still knelt down before God and adored Him for who He was; a baby who would be King. My time spent in praising God gives me a renewed focus for the day and for achieving my goals. Praising God and adoring Him gets me out of myself to focus on the reason for my hope. If you are feeling discouraged about where you are at, try gratitude. Adore and praise God for the little and big blessings in your life; it really works.

Pay attention to your dreams.

God speaks to us in our dreams. Sometimes dreams are just like Ebenezer Scrooge says, “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.”

But sometimes dreams are really answers we have been looking for and direction we have been seeking.

The Bible is filled with dreams. In the story of the Magi, they were warned in a dream not to return by way of Herod, who was going to pump them for details so he could kill the newborn king. They heeded the warning and went home another route.

God has always used dreams in my life to show me what I needed to do. The inspiration for this book came to me in the experience of a recurring nightmare of being out in the ocean treading water with my newborn baby in my arms. I’ve spent the last eighteen years reflecting on these dreams and they formed the inspiration for my book. It’s pretty cool.

Ask God to speak to you in your dreams and then pay attention.

Be willing to change course and take a different route.

The Magi’s dream helped them make the decision to change course and take a different route home. Our goals grow and change with us. In January, the path seems clear. But by March, the cold of winter makes us tired. Getting out to the gym when it’s dark and cold just doesn’t hold the same attraction it did when we set those goals to get in shape.

Discouraging voices slip in just like the voice of Herod to the Magi. Herod’s intentions sound good, but he really wanted this newborn baby dead. We all hear those discouraging voices telling us what we can’t do. The voices of discouragement are usually the loudest when we are closest to reaching those goals.

Shortly after I made my goals for 2014, Johanna spent 21 days in the PICU. She had four surgeries back to back. While seated at her bedside in the PICU, I was trying to get on webinars for my coaching certification and get an outline written for the book. But she was so unwell that I thought she was going to die. My stupid goals meant nothing if I was going to lose my daughter.

In the midst of this discouragement, I listened to a very disturbing message from the US Senate floor. The Senate Majority leader, Senator Harry Reid gave a prepared speech that accused those of us who had shared our personal struggles with Obamacare, of lying. I was livid and expressed my views in social media.

In my frustration, all I wanted to do was get Jo better and go home to study for my certification and write my book. But through a strange set of circumstances, I found myself on Fox News, challenging Senator Reid to apologize to my daughter and to the American people.

When it was over, I received messages from people all over the US, thanking me for giving regular people a voice. It was a profoundly moving experience and it inspired me to set a new course to reach my goals, not just for me, but for others who struggle and need to be heard.

Don’t give up.

The Magi got to Bethlehem and the attention they paid to this little baby in the manger was a prophetic gesture that has spoken to generations. Despite obstacles along the way, they followed the star and reached their destination.

I was pumped on my 50th birthday when I wrote in my journal that 2014 would be the year that I would get my coaching certification and write my book. One month before I took the certification test, I almost quit the program. I was discouraged and doubtful, but I stayed the course and got it done. It has made a tremendous difference in my confidence as a coach and speaker.

The final days before the book was set to be published were the worst days of the entire process. I knew that I had to read the book from beginning to end to be sure that it flowed. I was so plagued by doubts, thinking I was delusional and the book was awful. I almost scrapped the whole thing.

Then I looked in my daughter’s sparkling blue eyes as Johanna asked, “Mommy, is it done now? Are you ready to publish the book?”

I knew in that moment that there was no turning back. In fact, Johanna’s excitement was my final motivation to finish the book. I told her that I needed to read the book from beginning to end and I asked if I could read it aloud to her for a critique. She agreed. Then over an entire weekend, she spent hours cuddled next to me on the couch as I read the book aloud to my finest critic.
When I reached the conclusion, Johanna smiled and nodded and said, “Mom, I love it. It’s a really good book.”

That’s when I knew I had reached my goal and received the best review anyone could ever give me.

Eileen Benthal is a writer, speaker and wellness coach with a B.A. in Theology from Franciscan University. She is the author of Breathing Underwater: A Caregiver’s Journey of Hope.

Eileen and her husband Steve live in Jamesport and have four young adult children. Their youngest, Johanna, is a teenager with special needs.

Eileen can be reached at FreeIndeedFreelance.com.