By Dannah Gresh, Founder of True Girl
This year, True Girl lead teacher Janet Mylin wrote a True Girl's Guide to the New Year to help your daughter set goals. Mind if I take three minutes to tell you why this matters so much?
If you plant lima beans, what do you get? Lima beans! If you plant zucchini, what do you get? Zucchini!
Galatians 6:7 tells us that the same sort of thing happens in our character.
“Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God.
You will always harvest what you plant.” (Galatians 6:7)
If your daughter is a girl who reads the Bible and prays today, she is going to become a wise woman who loves God’s Word and is a prayer warrior in the future.
But . . . if she spends most of her time on the Internet, playing computer games, or watching movies, it will be hard to grow a heart that loves to read the Bible and pray. Computer games and movies are not in and of themselves bad, and it’s okay to enjoy them sometimes. But your girl also needs to press into growing up and growing into what God hopes she will become one day. Whether that’s a loving wife and mom, a lawyer, a pastor’s wife, a doctor, a missionary, or a combination of all of the above!
Life can’t be all fun. It’s important to teach your daughter to be intentional and devote time to become what she will be when she grows up. That might mean practicing her piano so she can pursue classical music, or learning to cook with you so she can be a great Mom like you. It might mean studying her Bible so she grows in her faith, or working extra hard on math homework because she wants to be a scientist. No one just becomes something. They work toward it.
And the best way to do that is to set goals. Here are two simple reasons why your daughter should set some goal for the new year.
#1 • She needs to set goals so she doesn't believe this lie about herself.
Does it sounds like setting goals will be too difficult for your daughter or like it’s something for older women to consider? If so, you might be believing a lie. And it's one your daughter could believe, too.
Lie: “I’m too young to _________.”
This lie shows up in a lot of different ways, to keep girls from planting good things in their lives. Sometimes it sounds like one of these lies.
“I’m too young to read my Bible.”
“I’m too young to pray.”
“I’m too young to make my bed.”
“I’m too young to get up early.”
“I’m too young to save money.”
“I’m too young to give my heart to Christ and be a Christian.”
The Bible tells us to let no one despise our youth! If your daughter could read the words in this article, she is not too young to do any of those things. Don’t let her fall for the lie that what she is doing today as a tween girl doesn’t really matter. It does.
In fact, that brings me to the next reason for her to set goals.
#2 • She needs to set goals because what she is will determine what she will become.
If your daughter is disciplined, she will become disciplined. If she is kind, she will become kind. If she is hardworking, she will be a hard worker.
When I was writing Lies Girls Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free, my friend Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth told me something her father used to say:
“You are what you have been becoming.”
–Art DeMoss, as spoken to Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth as a child
It's true.
When I first visited my friend Nancy’s house, I noticed an interesting piece of framed art in her living room. It was a letter she wrote when she was 7 years old. It reads:
Dear Mommy & Daddy,
On Saturday, I knew that God had touched my heart and wanted me to be a missionary for Him, and it was just as if He had stood before me.
Right then I started to think . . . how a missionary would speak to people. I could just tell EVERYBODY this wonderful news. I’m so happy about it. And I just know that God has spoken to me and told me to be a missionary for Him. And I think being a missionary is the best job for me.
I’m just so happy that God wants me to be a missionary for Him.
Nancy
When Nancy was very young, she was already becoming what she is today: a great Bible teacher and an author who leads hundreds of thousands of women in growing closer to God. Her ministry, Revive Our Hearts, is now in many countries around the world. I think that makes her a missionary. The whole world over, women know her name and trust her. She didn’t wait until she was an adult to start becoming a missionary. She started when she was 7!
I wonder . . . what will your daughter become?
Download a True Girl's Guide to the New Year to help your daughter set goals today.
A True Girl's Guide to the New Year is a 10-page downloadable and printable booklet. It’s broken down into five sections: people, faith, fun, school, and time. On each page, your tween will answer some questions that help get her brain thinking about that topic. At the bottom of each page, she’ll write one GRACE GOAL about that topic. For example, under TIME, she might write “Spend 30 minutes every week practicing piano.” She’ll transfer all of her GRACE GOALS to the last page of the guide, which is a coloring page she can put on her wall as a reminder of what she’s hoping to accomplish in the new year.
And, of course, it’s a double bonus if you and your daughter do this together!
