It was said about the Lord Christ in these days that “He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.” It is a fixed gaze, and a fixed step, toward a fixed goal. This goal was clear from the beginning. Did He not say to His mother in His childhood, at the age of 12: “I must be about My Father’s business” (Lk 2)? By this He gives us an idea of the clarity of the goal and its steadfastness.

The goal in the spiritual life

Daniel the prophet was clear in his goal, and his goal was the Lord alone.
Therefore, when he lived in the king’s palace, his goal was neither the palace, nor the king, nor the positions. For this reason he was able to keep himself pure in exile. And the Scripture said about him: “But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank” (1:8). And thus he was able to open his window facing Jerusalem and kneel to the Lord, without caring that he would be cast into the lions’ den.

Every person should have a clear and fixed goal. And if his goal is defined, his means may also become clear. But the one who has no fixed goal will undoubtedly be confused in all his ways.

I admire in the life of Saint Arsanius that he always placed his goal before his eyes. Therefore, from time to time, he used to speak to himself saying: “Consider, O Arsanius, what you went out for.”

John the Baptist also had a fixed goal, which was to prepare the way of the Lord and make ready for Him a prepared people. Therefore, his method in work was clear.
He proclaimed repentance, firmly and without flattery, because by this he was preparing the way of the Lord—even if the matter led to the cutting of his head…

Goals in the world are so many without end, but blessed is the one who has only one goal, which is the Lord and none other.

Paul the Apostle said: “For to me, to live is Christ”—Christ is my life, He is my goal; if I stray from Him, I am lost. For this reason he was able to say: “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.” Yes, whoever’s life is Christ sees death as gain.

Many ask: “What is our purpose in life?” As if they live without a goal, or as if they do not know their goal! Or as if they have not made God their goal…

The goal is known—it is God. And the more appropriate question is about the means… When we drift away from God, and enter worldly goals into our life, then we lose the way. Paul the Apostle said: “For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). It is one defined goal from which he does not turn aside…

Abraham, the father of the patriarchs, when he made God his goal, was able to leave his homeland and his relatives and his father’s house, and it was easy for him to offer his son as a burnt offering.
He was able to leave all these things because they were not his goals… And when his herdsmen argued with Lot’s herdsmen, he gave Lot the freedom to choose whatever land he wished, for the land was not his goal. The goal was one, and it was God…

If your goal is God, you can dispense with everything, as Peter said to Christ: “We have left all and followed You.”

“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me,” thus said the Lord. And He also said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut 6:5). The Scripture used the expression “all,” for there is no goal except God alone.

I fear that the world has placed many goals in our way.
Satan roams the earth distributing goals, sowing purposes, hopes, and desires… And the first goal Satan offers is the self…

From the beginning, the self has been the rival goal to God…! Since Satan said: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will be like the Most High” (Is 14:14).

It is the self that became the goal: I will ascend, I will be, I will become… And the same war he offered to the human being:
“You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen 3:5).

Adam and Eve had God and His love as their goal, and Satan turned them toward the self, the divinity of the self, and its knowledge equal to the knowledge of God!

How many people were lost because they made knowledge their goal—knowledge that puffs up…
Satan fought Adam and Eve with it, because Satan is a cherub, one of the order of the cherubim. And the word “cherubim” is Hebrew meaning “fullness of knowledge.” And the astonishing thing is that when the human being ate from the tree of knowledge, he became ignorant, because he sought his knowledge from a source far from God…

Among the mighty goals Satan set before people is pleasure…
How many people have as their goal to enjoy and take pleasure… Pleasure even became a philosophy among the Epicureans—pleasure of the body, the eye, and the pride of life…

The goal of these became pleasure in all its forms: the pleasure of the senses, the pleasure of eating and drinking—“Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

Then many goals multiplied in the world, even in the way of the Lord… You enter service, and Satan enters with you, presenting you with goals:
The goal of fame in service, precedence and control, love of praise—as if people’s praise for your service were more important than the effect of the service and its work in the salvation of people.

Thus God disappeared in the service, and the self appeared. And likewise in the depth of the spiritual life, often the self becomes the goal.

A person prays not to enjoy being in the presence of God, abiding in God and God in him, but to become “a man of prayer.” And he fasts to excel in fasting, to please himself that he is devout, or to please people.

The way to God became the goal—not God…

And God asks you: Where am I among your many goals?!
And we feel that we have lost the way, and need to review our goals…

If your goal is God, your concern will be confined to all that relates to God: His Kingdom, His Church, His Gospel, His children.
But beware that you be deceived on the way, and your means deviate. A person says he loves the Church and loves reform to spread the Kingdom. And for the sake of reform he insults, quarrels, judges others, contends, complains, and loses his gentleness and humility…

Poor is this person—he ought to reform himself before he reforms the Church… He has lost God while speaking about reform.
God is no longer his goal, but reform. And this is not true reform, because reform begins first inside the self, not outside it.

These people cry “the Church,” and when you look at their ways, you do not find them fitting for children of the Church nor members of the Body of Christ—without love, without humility, without peace… You feel they have lost the goal.

Every goal that distances you from the salvation of your soul—know that it is a deceit from Satan… and likewise every means.

Satan wants to mislead you even while you are inside the Church, even while you are praying… As with a person who, out of his great love for God, is overwhelmed by tears in prayer. Satan makes him forget the love of God and reminds him of the tears, focusing all his attention on them as a sign of spirituality and depth. The tears become the goal during prayer, and God disappears, and the tears remain as a manifestation of self-concern.

Do you think that those who went astray all went astray outside the Church? No, for within the Church many went astray and separated from her while still inside her.

The story of the prodigal son is proof of this matter: the younger son went astray outside his father’s house, and the elder went astray inside the house and service.
He served his father “for many years.” Yet he had no love toward his father nor toward his brother, and he spoke as a hired servant and not as a son. He did not rejoice at his brother’s return, nor share his father’s joy, and he blamed his father saying: “You never gave me a young goat to make merry with my friends” (Lk 15), as if accusing his father of stinginess and lack of appreciation. He did all this while he was with the father and in service, and he cared about his friends and the young goat and his joy more than the father, His will, and His love.

Thus the elder son lost his goal while in the service “with the father”!
This elder son allowed other goals into him: his self, his position, his father’s appreciation of him, and the necessity of his superiority in honor over his brother… and he was lost.

How many people began the way with a sound goal—the Kingdom of God and His righteousness—and then deviated to secondary goals that destroyed them.

How many servants began service with God and completed it with the self… They began with the glory of God and ended with the glory of themselves. When they began the service, God for them was all in all… little by little the divine goal disappeared, replaced by routine, or replaced by the self, or service itself became a goal, not a means leading to God!!
Service became a goal for these, and then their goal became the success of the service, and success became everything that occupied them. And for its sake they resorted to worldly or secular ways and lost God.

Therefore, we must examine ourselves: review our goals and our means, and know God’s place in them, with all precision and all honesty.

Is God one of the goals? Or the first goal? Or the only goal? Or is He not a goal at all?

There are signs that show you the soundness of the goal and of its means, including:
If you lose everything, and God remains for you, you do not grieve.
And if your goal is God, you will live in continual peace.

Perhaps among the wonderful examples in this matter is Joseph the righteous.
He lost his freedom and was sold as a slave, and lost his reputation and was cast into prison, and also lost his parents and brothers and homeland, and lived as a stranger. Yet with all that he was happy, because he did not lose the only goal, which is God…

If I lose all things, and Christ remains for me, then I am richer than all people.

We grow weary when we lose the divine goal and take for ourselves worldly goals. The world burns in the torment of goals, and it is not happy.

Perhaps among the strangest troubles in people’s lives is that God turns from being a goal into a means—merely a means to achieve their goals. And if He does not achieve them for them, they rebel and blaspheme and leave God and religion—and their goals may even be wrong!

How difficult it is to focus our goals in this time that will end shortly. Let us care for what is above, and make our goals bear the mark of eternity…

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1. Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Year Seven (Issue Sixteen) 16-4-1976 AD

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