The point is that you are never too old to set new goals, to set out for new horizons, to begin new quests for God. Listen to this list of individuals who made great accomplishments in the later stages of their lives:
Goethe at 80 completed
Faust.
Tennyson at 83 wrote
Crossing the Bar.
Michelangelo completed his greatest work of art at age 87.
Immanuel Kant wrote his best philosophical works at 74.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes set down some of his most brilliant legal opinions at age 90.
At 89, pianist Arthur Rubenstein, though he could not see the keyboard, played brilliantly from memory at Carnegie Hall.
Albert Schweitzer still headed his hospital in Africa at the age of 89.
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At 88, Konrad Adenauer was Chancellor of Germany.
At 82, Winston Churchill wrote his four-volume work, A History of the English-Speaking People.
At 81, Ben Franklin effected the compromise that led to the adoption of the United States Constitution.
You are never too old to set goals.
At the other end of the age spectrum, we can also say that you are never too young to set goals. Young people, God's purpose for your life begins right now. Whether you are 10 or 15 or 20, there are goals that you can set, dreams that you can begin to seek that are in line with God's purpose and plan for your life.
For each of us, there is a land of Hebron that God has set before us and His desire for each of us is that we stand up and declare, "I want that mountain!" Goal-setting is for everyone.
Reaching Our Goals Requires Effort
Hear what Caleb said in
verse 11 of our text: "I am still as strong today as I was in the day Moses sent me." Caleb said, "as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in."
Caleb realized that it was not enough just to set a goal for his life. Nor was it enough just to set a goal in line with God's purpose. Caleb realized that once the goal was set, he would have to fight and struggle and work in order to reach that goal.
Reaching our goals will not be easy. It wasn't for Caleb and it won't be for us. For Caleb to claim his mountain, he had to run the giants out of the land. As we strive to reach our goals, as we attempt to claim our mountain, there will also be giants that we will have to overcome.
There will be the giant of adversity. We will never attempt anything significant in life without someone opposing us. They will stand in our way. They will criticize us. They will discourage us. The giant of adversity will have to be overcome.
There will also be the giant of failure. As we move toward our goal, there will be many setbacks along the way. The key factor in achieving success will be our ability to move past these temporary failures to eventual victory.
There will be the giant of laziness. One of the greatest tragedies in the church today is Christians who fail to realize their potential and reach their goals because they are too lazy to put out the effort.