Near the end of his life Paul wrote Timothy saying, "I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. (2 Tim. 4: 7)" Many of us start off strong, but somewhere along the way we lose focus. Some abandon their dreams while others never have one. They just stumble around wondering why they accomplish so little.
If you are like me you get excited to start a new project. These projects provide us with a lot of energy and excitement. They offer a new adventure, and we are certain that this adventure will enable us to accomplish significant things. No doubt you are just as excited when you cross the finish line and complete the project you began. There is a sense of accomplishment in that which is hard to find anywhere else. The problem comes during the time between the beginning and the end. If one isn't careful he or she can find themselves starting a lot of new projects and never completing one. There are a number of reasons why this can happen.
The first reason is that we just lose sight of the original goal. We set out to do A, and the next thing we know B and C and D are demanding more and more of our time and attention. While we put out fires we forget the original goal we wanted to achieve. Besides, fire fighting wears a person out and there may be little energy to return to A.
Time management is a challenge for most pastors. I suppose you've heard that the first of the Four Spiritual Laws has been changed to "God loves you, and everybody has a wonderful plan for your life." Unless we are very careful about managing our time we can allow others to manage it for us. They have many wonderful things they want to do with your time, and few of them has anything to do with the goals you have set out to achieve.
A second reason we may struggle to complete our task is that it may require new ways of doing things. We may complain about how people resist change, but the truth is that we in leadership aren't too excited about it either. It may require us learning new things or abandoning some other projects we enjoy doing. I've seldom talked to a church that didn't tell me they wanted to grow, but they didn't want to do anything new that might lead to growth.
We need to accept the fact that everything we are doing today was once a new way of doing things. People in the past began doing the new thing because what they were doing no longer was effective. What we are doing today will one day cease to be effective, and it's possible that day has already come. Some sacred cows may have to be sacrificed if we are to complete our task.
A third reason we might struggle to complete our tasks is that we run into a dead end and need to regroup. I like to remind people that beating a dead horse won't make it run any faster. Sometimes the goal is a good one, but the way we try to achieve it will not work. There's nothing wrong with backing up and taking a different approach.
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