Goals' Hinderances or Opportunities?

   When people talk about setting goals and reaching their dreams, many times they encourage you not to focus on the things that can keep you from reaching them. This can be great advice. At times though I think its good to stop and think about the things that might be detaining you in your desire to reach your goals because it can allow you to trouble shoot or discover if there is something that is a necessary hindrance.
   A lot of people have told me their dreams and their plans for their life. Some of them are extremely ambitious, and I think they can reach them if they set their minds to it. Often though I get concerned for them if they were to actually reach their goal, and its not because I don't want them to succeed. Rather it's the idea that often times success comes at the price of depreciation to the spiritual life. This has been something that has concerned me in my own life, and maybe in ways held me back physically, but I believe the physical trade-off is definately worth it.
   I think about this too, if I can see this in other people's lives and in my own can't God see this even more clearly in my own.There are times in my life when I really feel like I need to be doing something and it doesn't work out, or maybe sometimes I just really want it. I remember back in high school I really wanted to go to state in basketball, and our team never made it out of regionals. We can all lament over things that didn't work out in our lives, and sometimes we need to grieve so that we can heal, but we also need to see the opportunities and the blessings that can arise as a result of things not working out our way. It might simply be a distractor to try to keep us from persevering, but it also might be that God simply has different plans for our lives. I don't think we have to worry about knowing the difference. God is quite capable of showing us His will if we but ask for it. I think it is a matter of perspective though. Will we choose to have the right perspective regardless of the circumstances to make the most of it?

"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of Him." ~1 John 5:14-15