This morning, I am considering the word “intentional”.
As I woke up this morning to the darkness and the sound of hard rain, my waking prayer was, “Lord, don’t let it be 6:20 yet.” Because 6:20 is pretty much the latest that I can get up 7 days a week to let the dogs out in the morning and it not throw our morning routine completely off schedule (and not leave us with puppy surprises on the floor inside the house). And the Lord was faithful when I looked at the clock and the first digit was either a 4 or a 5, and I settled my mind for a prayer of praise before falling back asleep.
And 6:00 came and my Monday morning alarm went off — reminding me that today usually includes a commute into the office. My normal intention for Monday mornings is to make the hour commute into Greenville, SC (where our office is) from Campobello, SC (where we live) — and work the rest of the week from home. But weather, driving conditions, evening maintenance work requirements, and other requirements can affect that schedule.
This got me thinking about how having intentions and justifying not following through with those intentions can be a bad thing. In fact, the better we are at planning and envisioning the future, and learning from our past, the greater chance that diverting from the intended path is going to be a bad thing. So, as I get older, I pay attention to these “adaptations” and “reactions” to insure that I’m not slowly giving up on my intentions and direction to be distracted away to something else.
I began to wonder about this from a Biblical perspective. I realize that God is all knowing, and that He does not change — and I realized that we “adapt” either because something happened that we didn’t plan for, or because we have abandoned our original intentions for something else. But God isn’t surprised by anything, and He doesn’t change because of the circumstances surrounding Him. He has a plan and a purpose that will not be thwarted.
So this had me wondering about my own life and how much of it is intentional versus how much is changed, swayed, moved, affected by whatever is going on around me. I wondered how easy or difficult it might be for something around me to influence me to react, to adapt, to divert from my intended plan. To put this in human terms, think about advertising, and click bait, and sponsored search results, and posts/articles with “trigger words” on the Internet and how these are used to distract us away into where someone wants us to go. Now imagine an unseen spiritual enemy who can do the same thing to tempt us away from our life’s purpose and has learned what bait works generation after generation and time after time.
If I’ve had vision and am pragmatic, my plan is to “Work in the office on Mondays unless I have scheduled maintenance or the driving conditions are bad”, then waking up to rain on a Monday and rejoicing that I can sleep in a bit longer is an intentional plan that I’ve made that makes sense, is efficient, and is effective. But if my intention is to “Work in the office on Mondays” but I have no solid plan to make this a reality — and I rarely am there because I wake up and “struggle against my intentions” to constantly adapt, or come up with excuses, or justify my abandoning my original intentions — this does not make sense, is inefficient, and is ineffective.
Don’t misunderstand, I’m not trying to advocate the chains of OCD schedules and plans — but I’m talking about having vision and being pragmatic — both of which are how we see God operating — and both thwart the opportunity enemies to sway or distract us from our path and purpose — and both can be seen as valuable even to a person who isn’t spiritual.
I am given the flexibility to make either wise or foolish decisions — in my life — at my job — with my faith.
If I make foolish decisions (and I do), my best path is to learn from them, communicate honestly and in a timely manner with those involved, and be intentional about how to handle the situation in the future — and to be intentional. But if I’m constantly abandoning “my intentions” to chase after some distraction — a distraction indulged can become a “new intention”. This is how whole lives and families are uprooted and shattered on the rocks when a lack of purpose and firm footing exists and people are dragged this way and that way by circumstances, by feelings, by desires, by manipulations, by temptations, etc.
What do we see as The Way?
- Follow God’s plan (be intentional)
- Remain steadfast in trial
- Ask for wisdom
- Grow in wisdom and peace walking God’s Way
It is useless getting mad, if instead we:
- Do it my own way
- Are ruled by our desires
- Doubt or don’t ask to know God’s Way
- Insist on being foolish and resisting the surrender that would free us from slavery to the tricks of the enemy
And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to follow Me [as My disciple], he must deny himself [set aside selfish interests], and take up his cross daily [expressing a willingness to endure whatever may come] and follow Me [believing in Me, conforming to My example in living and, if need be, suffering or perhaps dying because of faith in Me]. For whoever wishes to save his life [in this world] will [eventually] lose it [through death], but whoever loses his life [in this world] for My sake, he is the one who will save it [from the consequences of sin and separation from God]. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world [wealth, fame, success], and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed [here and now] of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory and the glory of the [heavenly] Father and of the holy angels.
Luke 9:23-26 AMP
Consider it nothing but joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you fall into various trials. Be assured that the testing of your faith [through experience] produces endurance [leading to spiritual maturity, and inner peace]. And let endurance have its perfect result and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfect and completely developed [in your faith], lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom [to guide him through a decision or circumstance], he is to ask of [our benevolent] God, who gives to everyone generously and without rebuke or blame, and it will be given to him. But he must ask [for wisdom] in faith, without doubting [God’s willingness to help], for the one who doubts is like a billowing surge of the sea that is blown about and tossed by the wind. For such a person ought not to think or expect that he will receive anything [at all] from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable and restless in all his ways [in everything he thinks, feels, or decides].
James 1:2-8 AMP
Harold J. Ballinger 