Ask Pastor John: "Make a Life Plan for 2026"

Podcast: Ask Pastor John
Host: Desiring God
Episode Date: January 1, 2026
Guest: John Piper
Main Theme: How Christians can develop a personal mission statement and life plan that aligns with God’s ultimate purpose.

Episode Overview

In this episode, John Piper addresses a listener’s question about how Christians can craft a personal mission statement and life plan for 2026. The conversation digs deeply into the theological motivation for planning, emphasizing that God is a planner with overarching purposes. Piper discusses how we can discern God’s ultimate goal and then align all aspects of our lives with that purpose, offering practical advice for Christians feeling daunted by the idea of writing their own life mission statement.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Foundation: God as the Ultimate Planner

• God’s Character as a Planner: Piper grounds the concept of personal life planning in the revelation that God Himself is a planner with purposes and goals in everything He does.
  • Quote: “God has purposes, he has goals in everything he does. He’s not going in circles.” (03:04)
  • Scriptural references: Isaiah 46, Isaiah 14:24, Isaiah 37:6, Acts 4:27
• The Implication for Christians: Because God is purposeful, Piper insists Christians should also live with intention and resolve.
  • Quote: “I don’t think there would be any gospel, any salvation, any eternal joy if God were not a planner, one who lived with purposes and goals.” (04:32)

2. Seeking God’s Ultimate Purpose

• Piper recalls his personal journey, wrestling in his early adulthood with the question of God’s overarching purpose and how to join in.
  • Quote: “What is God’s ultimate goal?…And then the next question becomes, well, if I could discern what his ultimate goal was, how can I join him in it?” (06:10)
• God’s glory is the thread running through Scripture’s answers:
  • Quote: “God’s ultimate purpose is to be seen and savored and shown as infinitely glorious. That’s his ultimate purpose.” (09:38)
  • Isaiah 43:6, Lord’s Prayer ("Hallowed be your name") as biblical evidence

3. Navigating Complexity: General vs. Specific in Mission Statements

• Piper advises against overly detailed mission statements because life circumstances change continually.
  • Quote: “If you want your mission statement to last more than a few years, it will need to be high level and general. And that’s mainly what I have in mind.” (07:43)
• Overly specific statements quickly become obsolete due to life’s variability; a high-level focus helps maintain long-term consistency.

4. Practical Process for Crafting a Personal Mission Statement

• Step 1: Grasp God’s infinite fullness and His desire to communicate His glory.
  • Quote: “God was infinitely full of every perfection and could not be improved, and was the sum of all excellence, all beauty, all worth…” (08:22)
• Step 2: Recognize God’s aim for humans to “see, savor, and show” His glory.
  • Piper’s three favorite words: “seen, savored, and shown.” (09:38)
• Step 3: Deploy all of life—actions, words, attitudes—to reflect God’s greatness, in every context.
  • Scriptural examples include 1 Corinthians 10:31, 1 Peter 4:11, 2 Thessalonians 1:11–12

5. The Heart of Every Action: Joyful Reliance on God for His Glory

• Doing all things “in glad reliance upon God” makes even mundane activities acts of worship.
  • Quote: “Let the one who serves serve in the strength that God supplies so that in everything God may be glorified.” (1 Peter 4:11, paraphrased at 13:20)
• “We do what we do in glad reliance upon God for everything we need in order to love people. In other words, we live by faith in the promises of God in the service of love.” (14:15)

6. Applying and Adapting: From Overarching to Seasonal Statements

• Build a primary, biblically rooted mission statement focused on God’s glory.
• Then, create smaller, season-specific statements—e.g., for a year, a project, or a particular calling—adapting to life changes.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the necessity of mission statements:

  • “Mission statements seem helpful to me. They keep me focused on the great things of life.” (07:14)
  • “The essence of every biblical personal mission statement, I think, if it ties into God's ultimate purpose.” (10:49)

• Piper’s Three Words for God's Purpose:

  • “God's ultimate purpose is to be seen and savored and shown as infinitely glorious. That’s his ultimate purpose.” (09:38)

• On seasonality and flexibility:

  • “Then when you have crafted an overarching mission statement built on those purposes of God, then you can make some short term mission statements … according to the season of your life.” (15:12)

Important Timestamps

• God as Planner & Why It Matters: 03:01–06:00
• Finding God’s Ultimate Purpose: 06:00–10:00
• Why Mission Statements Should Stay General: 07:30–08:50
• Piper’s Summary of God’s Highest Goal: 09:10–10:30
• Scriptural Examples: Living for God’s Glory: 10:45–13:00
• How to Turn Everything Into Worship (1 Peter 4:11): 13:00–14:00
• Short-Term and Seasonal Planning: 15:12–15:30

Practical Takeaways

• Start with God’s character and purpose, not your circumstances or talents.
• Craft a personal life statement that is biblically broad and rooted in glorifying God through seeing, savoring, and showing Him.
• Let short-term goals and mission statements adapt as life changes—they are temporary and shaped by seasons.
• Do everything in dependent faith on God, so that He gets the glory in every action.

Concluding Thought (Piper, summarized at 15:29)

“Personal mission: To appreciate God as a planner. To rely on his grace in all that we do so that through seeing, savoring, and showing his infinite glory to the world, I may delight in him as I fulfill his ultimate purpose of being glorified in all things and working that aim out in each season of my own life—trying to make that my life goal being God’s goal.”

Episode’s Core Message

Let your life’s mission statement be driven by God’s revealed goal: His glory seen, savored, and shown in everything you do, through joyful reliance on Him. Keep your statement big and biblically anchored, and let the particulars adjust as your seasons change.

For more on daily Scripture habits and further episodes, Piper and host Tony Reinke invite listeners to join them in a year-long Bible reading plan—reminding everyone that daily engagement with God’s Word is the essential, non-negotiable habit for all Christians.