How to ask God for a picture of the future

When you set a goal, you are influenced by the way that you imagine the future.You can have the SMARTest goal in the world, but if your picture of the future is rooted in fantasy or unbelief, you may end up heading in the wrong direction.Unbelief around the future is when you are motivated and inspired by ideas that are small, inconsequential, and have little impact because you haven't tapped into God's resources for your goals and dreams.Fantasy with regards to the future is when you are motivated by a sense of the future that isn't grounded in reality.Either of these two influences (unbelief and fantasy) can lead you down the wrong path in goal-setting.I personally tend towards both unbelief and fantasy when I imagine the future. Sometimes, particularly after a large cup of coffee, I imagine outlandish and grandiose outcomes for my goals. For instance, I am moving into a season of training in my work. When I imagined doing this, I began to imagine an entirely new curriculum for both my staff and those we are involved in training, and I imagined this being completed within the next couple of months. Although, it's great to train a lot of people, I was completely overestimating the amount of time I had and what I could accomplish in a certain amount of time.But then I can live in unbelief (usually by the afternoon after the coffee high has worn off). In the example of training, I looked at the future and saw myself training only a few people and none of them doing anything with the material I gave them.If I allow either of these pictures to be the driving force in my goal-setting, I will either burn out my family by trying to meet an unrealistic goal or short-cut God's ability to do something powerful because I didn't include Him in my process.The picture you have of the future is the most significant factor in how you set goals. You have got to get this picture right so that you can set set a God-sized goal.That's why the first step in the process of setting God-sized goals is asking God for a picture of the future. He knows the future. If you ask him to show you a picture, even just a glimpse of what is to come, it will significantly impact the goals that you create.When God wanted Moses to participate in his deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt, he showed him the future. He told him that in the future Israel would not live in Egypt and would live in a promised land. It was this picture of the future that drove Moses forward to go to Pharaoh and play his part in the deliverance of Israel from Egypt.God volunteered his picture of the future to Moses. Sometimes God will show us something when we aren't expecting it. But we can also be proactive in pursuing Him for a picture of the future as we prepare to set goals in an area of our lives.Here is how to ask God for a picture of the future for a particular area of your life.

1. Choose an area where you want to set a goal. It might be for your business, for your health, for your marriage, or for your kids. Decide about which area you are going to ask God the question.
2. Decide on a timeline of how far into the future you want to set your goal. Is this a three-month, one-year, or a five-year goal? Either way, you probably have a sense of how far into the future you can plan.
3. Ask the question: "God, in ______ month/years, what is _________ going to look like?"
4. Write down the answers that come to mind. When you write, assume that God can speak right to your heart and that when you ask by faith, he will answer you.
5. Ask follow-up questions for clarification. You might see or hear things that don't make sense. You can ask God for clarification. What does that mean? How big is the scope of what you are saying? What does what I am seeing have to do with this area of my life?
6. Go to Step 2. Next week, I will be talking about step 2 in setting God-sized goals.

God is not limited by your questions, but you create a space for him to speak when you ask. Some people will object to this process because it feels like we are limiting God. They will say, "God can speak or not speak. I can't confine him through my questions." It is true that God may not answer as we expect or he may speak in ways that are mysterious (just look at conversations Jesus had with people in the book of John). But asking the questions creates an environment in which you can hear his voice, and it will give you something to go on when you set your goal. Read my other blog post about hearing God through asking questions.The alternative to asking God for a picture of the future is risking creating your own ideas of the future that are influenced by unbelief or fantasy. So it's worth asking him if he would reveal to you his plans for the future.Have you ever experienced God giving you a picture of the future for an area in your life where you want to set goals?