Description
Product Description
USA TODAY BESTSELLER • Make the breakthrough you need to get your relationship on target with this interactive guide—the perfect companion to Michael Todd’s roadmap to finding lasting love, Relationship Goals.
Wondering if you should break up? Feeling like you could break down? How about discovering a breakthrough in all your relationships and finding fulfillment like never before?
This start-right-here study guide based on Michael Todd’s Relationship Goals takes the targets you have for your relationships and adds the coaching you need to steady your aim. As you and your small group, friends, or significant other write, reflect, pray, listen, and discuss your way through this guide, you’ll discover the practical tools and strategic space you need to move your relationships from “We’re okay” to “We’re better than ever.”
We’re talking friendships, marriage, dating, even ideas for relating well to the person in the next cubicle. Because having strong relationships means having a strong purpose in life—and who doesn’t want that?
So set your eyes on the goals that will help you win in relationships.
About the Author
Michael Todd is the lead pastor of Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His driving passion is re-presenting God to the lost and found for transformation in Christ. Michael speaks at a variety of influential churches, events, and conferences each year, including Elevation Church, C3 Conference, Lakewood Church, VOUS Conference, Relentless Church, XO Conference, and many others. Michael and his wife, Natalie, have been married since 2010 and live in Tulsa with their three children.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
A goal is the result or achievement toward which effort is directed. Take away the goal, and what good is the effort? Imagine a target archer with a bow and arrow. If he doesn’t have a bull’s-eye target, he can aim and shoot if he wants, but the arrow is not going to hit anything purposeful. So, what’s the point?
Many of us don’t have our aim directed when it comes to relationships. We take whatever comes. We do whatever’s comfortable. But we don’t really know where we’re going or why.
Don’t believe me? Have you ever known a girl who dated pretty much any guy who happened to show an interest in her, without ever stopping to think about the kind of guy who would really be right for her? Or a couple who have dated for a long time and have gotten so comfortable with it that they aren’t making any move toward marriage? Or a married couple who have let their former passion turn into a mere partnership for child rearing and home maintenance?
And it’s not just romantic relationships. How about a parent who doesn’t have any plans for how to stay close to his kids as they turn into adults and leave the home? Or somebody who moved into the neighborhood a year ago and still hasn’t made a single move to get to know her neighbors?
Maybe you’re the kind of person who somehow has never gotten around to making conscious relationship goals and has just fallen into the relationship ruts. But more than likely you’ve got some kind of goals, targets, or markers of success in mind when it comes to relationships. That’s better. Still, even if you do have targets, I want you to be open minded about whether these are the right targets. You might need to reexamine them. Because, see, it’s possible to have a target for your arrow that’s the wrong target.
Let’s say you’re single and ready to mingle and you’ve made a list of things you want in a significant other. One could be “He’s got to be at least this tall and make this much money,” or “She’s got to have a cute face and a tiny waist.” This shows that most of our lists tend to be a little (or a lot) superficial and might reflect, not what we actually need in a partner, but more of just what we want at the time.
Or let’s say you want to make more friends. Whom are you interested in knowing better? Is it just because