In my previous two articles on the topic of getting what we want, I looked at the importance of knowing what we want. If we haven't clearly defined what it is that we are trying to be, do, or have, then it's going to be impossible to know if we ever get it. Making a decision may not be easy, but we have to make a decision or we will never make any progress.

The second key dealt with our faith. We need to develop the kind of faith in God that won't wither when problems, setbacks, or disappointments rear their ugly heads. There is no escaping the fact that we will have to overcome obstacles on the road to what we want. The reason is that God wants to bless us beyond just helping us get what we want, He wants to work something much more powerful in our lives, a little something called perseverance. Because when we add that to our faith, we will never lack anything in our lives.

The third key to getting what we want is the third part of my simple formula for faith. Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

When we break that statement down into the individual parts, we see that faith consists of three things. First is what we hope for, or what I covered in part one of this series, it is deciding what we want. In other words, it's our desire.

The second part is the second key, something the writer of Hebrews called "substance". It is that unshakable, persistent faith that expects to receive what we desire. It is what we really expect, and not simply what we wish for.

The final part is called evidence. This is where the rubber meets the road in our journey toward getting what we want, because this is all about action. It's about the words we say and the things we do that are the tangible evidence that we know what we want, and we truly expect to have it.

The simple formula is:

Desire + Expectation + Action = Faith

There are three kinds of action we need to take.

Focused Action

I tend to make the mistake of trying to collect as much information as I can possibly find before I do anything. What I end up with is a lot of unused, and useless, knowledge. We all have to realize that gathering all the facts, reading all the books, will give us data, but not necessarily help us reach our dreams.

Focused action means doing the things that will actually take us to what we want in life. There are things that we won't learn, questions that we don't even know to ask, until we actually do something constructive and take action on our dreams. As Mike Litman says, "You don't have to get it right, you just have to get it going."

Even if you don't know all there is to know, take some step each and every day. Keep your focus on what you want and keep moving toward it, one step, one action, at a time. Constantly ask yourself, "Will this action get me closer to my goal?" If the answer is yes, then do it.

Inspired Action

The Bible tells us that God has given us the ability to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18). But how does He do that?

As much was I might like it if God would simply drop the money in my lap, that's not what He does. And if we get confused and think that that is how God operates, all we have to do is look at the lives of people who have won lotteries. Most of them end up worse off afterwards then if they had never won.

The key to inspired action is learning to listen to the ideas and the wisdom that God gives us. Proverbs 8 tells us that God's wisdom is crying out, literally begging for us to come and receive the wisdom we need to solve the problems we face. It tells us that wisdom is more valuable than gold or silver because wisdom will help us create enduring riches and righteousness (Proverbs 8:18).

Inspired action starts when we begin to pay attention to the ideas and wisdom that God brings into our lives. It is then made perfect when we trust God and take action on those ideas. The ideas themselves won't solve anything, but using those ideas will help us get what we want and create wealth that will last a lifetime.

Consistent, Persistent Action

Ecclesiastes 11:4 tells us that someone who worries about the wind won't sow, and because that person worries about all that could go wrong (looks at the clouds), he never reaps. It then goes on to tell us that we don't understand how God will cause things to happen in our lives (we don't know what the wind is doing, or how a baby is formed in the womb), but that God is in control and he makes everything happen.

What is our part in this process? Ecclesiastes 11:6 says, "Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let not your hands be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well."

We don't have to know how God will work things out, and wasting time trying to figure that out will only slow us down. All we need to do is to be consistent, and persistent, with our sowing. As Jim Rohn puts it, "God has the tough end of the deal. What if instead of planting the seed you had to make the tree? That would keep you up late at night, trying to figure that one out."

As we continue to take focused, inspired action toward our goals, and we stop wondering how God is going to work it all out and simply trust that He will, we will find that getting what we want was a lot easier than we thought.