The Texas Rangers have existed for 52 years but were never considered the best baseball team in the world until November 1, 2023, when they finished off the Arizona Diamondbacks in five games to capture their first World Series title.
Such a spectacular outcome seemed impossible just a year earlier. Little did baseball fans know that Rangers general manager Chris Young was in the middle of teaching us all a masterclass in setting and achieving goals.
The Rangers hired Young in December 2020. He set a goal of winning the World Series within just five years. But the Rangers were terrible back then. Certainly, Young’s goal was daunting, if not impossible.
As God’s young people, you also have a goal—one that is far more important than winning the last baseball game of the season and being crowned a world champion. Also, your goal is even more challenging. “[Become] ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
Sorry Ethan Hunt, but this is literally mission impossible.
As a teen, how much do you even think about becoming perfect like God? It ought to be hugely motivating to become the very best you can be and to fulfill your incredible potential in the Family of God. But, you might reason, I just want to have fun and enjoy my youth. The pursuit of perfection is for when I’m an adult.
The reality is, God’s way of life is the most rewarding way. Herbert W. Armstrong wrote:
It is the way of life that is the abundant life. It’s the way of the happy, cheerful life that simply radiates. It radiates sunshine and happiness, and it’s always happiness within. …
You will hew to the line of the one supreme goal of life, which should be to inherit the Kingdom of God, to be born of God into the very Family of God. You will relentlessly pursue this goal with zeal, with enthusiasm, with drive and with energy fired by godly ambition, with hope, with faith, living by every word of God. …
That is the Christian life. It’s the happy, the abundant life (“This Is the Life! Real Abundant Living,” May 1957 Plain Truth).
Making perfection your ultimate aim in life will put you right in line with the foundational law of success: Fix the right goal. “In other words, the very first law of success is to be able to define success!” Mr. Armstrong wrote in The Seven Laws of Success. “Once you have learned what success is, make that your goal in life.”
As far as baseball goes, Texas Rangers general manager Chris Young fixed the right goal: to build the very best baseball team on the planet.
But every goal needs a why and a how. “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he” (Proverbs 29:18). For fixing the right goal, vision is the why. Law keeping is the how.
Vision
Chris Young needed real vision to turn around his dreadful ball club that was quickly becoming a joke across Major League Baseball. He needed vision to accomplish what no Rangers team had ever done before, in the process atoning for back-to-back World Series losses in 2010 and 2011.
The 2011 loss, in particular, shattered the hearts of millions of baseball fans in the Fort Worth-Arlington-Dallas triangle, all of North Texas, and beyond. Needing just one more win, the Rangers led Game 6, 7-5, going into the bottom of the ninth inning.
Down to the final strike of the final out, Cardinals legend David Freese hit a game-tying, two-run triple off the right field wall. To this day, debate rages as to whether Rangers right fielder Nelson Cruz should have made the lunging catch. Glory escaped the Rangers by about a foot.
The contest extended into extra innings. The Rangers retook the lead, 9-7, in the top of the 10th, but the Cardinals rallied again to tie it at 9. Freese embedded himself as Texas fans’ worst nightmare with a walk-off home run. 10-9, Cardinals. Game over.
St. Louis went on to decisively win Game 7 and steal the World Series from the Rangers’ grasp. (The St. Louis Cardinals are the official baseball team of True Education. We approve this message.)
This crushing history motivated Young, and he used it to make a compelling pitch for the greatest baseball minds and bodies to join his team.
Your vision should be much stronger and more motivating than redemption for losing a ballgame. Becoming perfect is hard, so what is your vision?
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. … And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:18, 28). In this life and the next, your efforts to achieve perfection will pay off.
God will work with you and eventually through you by the power of His Holy Spirit to produce His perfect character in you. The context of Romans 8 shows how becoming perfect will not only make your life better today, but it will benefit all mankind, the entire Earth, and eventually the whole universe!
Pursue perfection to be blessed in everyday life. Do it for your family and friends. Do it to help the world. Do it to enter God’s Family so you can restore and beautify the cosmos.
“The right goal will be so intensely desired it will excite vigorous and determined effort,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “It will fire one with incentive. There should be an overpowering purpose to life. … I have a mission to accomplish that is more important than my life” (The Seven Laws of Success).
Law
Having vision—a strong reason for accomplishing a goal—simply isn’t enough. There are definite laws to keep to realize the desired results.
In baseball, definite laws must be applied to construct a championship team. To accomplish his ultimate goal, Chris Young set lots of smaller goals along the way.
During Young’s first season at the helm, the Rangers finished a dismal 60-102—42 more losses than wins. Young’s first mini-goal on the championship chase was to fix the offense.
That winter, he unlocked the team safe and dumped stacks of cash on two star players to form the team’s foundation: sluggers Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, whose multi-year contracts totaled an unfathomable combined $500 million.
In 2022, the Rangers improved by a whopping eight wins, finishing 68-94—still 20-plus wins away from playoff contention. Cue the hearty belly laugh from fans and rival teams league-wide. Texas broke the bank yet remained mired in the 60-win tier? Hahahahahahahahahaha!
But Young wasn’t done. After bolstering the offense, he targeted new leadership. During the 2022 offseason, he talked elite manager (also known as ‘coach’) Bruce Bochy out of retirement to lead the Rangers. Bochy was the three-time World Series-winning manager of the San Francisco Giants (2010 against the Rangers!, 2012, 2014) and would bring championship expertise to the team.
The signing spree continued as Young sought to revamp the pitching staff. He signed excellent starters Nathan Eovaldi and Jacob deGrom, but deGrom was injured early in the 2023 season. Young kept signing and trading for roster depth to account for injuries, acquiring starter Max Scherzer and other useful players before the August trade deadline.
Player by player, piece by piece, Chris Young built a legitimate title contender. In just one year, the Rangers leapt from 68-94 to 90-72, qualified for the playoffs, and ripped through the Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, and Arizona Diamondbacks to gain hegemony over the baseball world.
Practically overnight, the Texas Rangers were the kings of the sport.
In your life, there are definite laws that will produce the desired results. Set mini-goals for every aspect of your life on the way to the ultimate goal of becoming perfect like God. Each of these goals requires a why and a how—vision and law. Why do you want to accomplish this goal, and how are you going to do it?
In The Seven Laws of Success, Mr. Armstrong made a helpful analogy about how to accomplish goals: “If you have saved up money for a trip to Paris, or Rome, or London for your vacation or holiday, you spend a lot of time in excited anticipation planning your trip—but you do have a definite destination—and all plans are laid to take you to that particular destination—that goal. You know where you are planning to go. Otherwise, how would you ever expect to arrive there?”
Write down daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly goals. Write why and how you will achieve these goals. Put this list somewhere you will see it all the time.
Here are a couple examples:
1. Lose 10 pounds in three months.
WHY: to have more energy and strength to pour into God’s Work
HOW: by purchasing and following a three-month diet-and-exercise program that matches God’s health laws
2. Save $1000 this year.
WHY: to become financially stable, save for college, and gain peace of mind
HOW: by saving $85/month
Notice how each of these goals is specific and measurable. There is an exact number to reach, and a deadline.
Fundamentals
When Chris Young hired Bruce Bochy, the culture of the Texas Rangers changed. Bochy heavily emphasized mastery of the fundamentals: eliminating defensive errors to stop giving free runs (mistakenly called ‘points’ by the baseball neophyte) to the other team.
From 2022 to 2023, the Rangers reduced their errors from 96 to 57—the third-fewest ever.
Likewise, you must focus on the fundamentals to reach your ultimate goal. Much more important than health or financial goals are spiritual goals. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).
Set goals to ensure you charge the spiritual batteries daily. It has been recommended that we strive for one hour of prayer, one hour of Bible study, and 20 minutes of meditation. This is not an easy threshold to eclipse—so you should aim to build to those totals over time. Perhaps go for 30 minutes of prayer for three straight weeks, then up it to 40, and so on. Keep a prayer list based on Jesus Christ’s prayer outline (Matthew 6:9-13), and refer regularly to How to Pray for assistance.
Keep a Bible study schedule so you regularly review each book and booklet from the literature archive at theTrumpet.com, plus the publications, plus the Herbert W. Armstrong College Bible Correspondence Course. Write deadlines for completing each title. If you hear Mr. Gerald Flurry or another minister recommend a booklet, move that title toward the top of your list.
At the 2023 Feast of Tabernacles, Mr. Flurry recommended meditating on one verse of Psalm 119 each day so you can complete the entire chapter twice in a year. Take notes about how to apply a particular verse in your life. Look up the words in the verse. Cross-reference the verse with other related verses.
Consider setting goals for sharpening your spiritual tools of fasting and fellowship too.
We have a goal. We have the vision to accomplish it. We have laws to keep to make it all possible. We know why and how to fix the right goal. Now, it’s just a matter of following through. It can and must be done.
“Every individual was put on this Earth for a purpose! Every person was put here to become a success. Every human ought to enjoy the sweet taste of success—to find peace and happiness—to live an interesting, secure and abundant life!” (ibid).
Remember Chris Young. Live like a champion today.