Sunday, June 24, 2012

Getting Intentional

What does it mean to be intentional?  I better figure it out, because that is the word I believe God is speaking to me right now.  It started during worship two weeks ago, singing "I will bless the Lord, bless the Lord at all times".  The key there is "I will".  The blessing His name - and certainly not the "at all times", cannot happen unless there is first an "I will" - I will choose, I will act, I will praise. I choose to set my will to praising Him.

As I have spent more time thinking about this concept of "I will", I've realized that so much of the time lately I haven't been saying "I will".  I've been saying, "I can't", "I won't", or "I'll wait".  "I'll wait" is the most egregious of all, simply because it doesn't feel like disobedience or defiance - it just feels like coasting. Coasting doesn't hurt anyone, does it?  I'm not so sure about that.  In the few years that I've said "I'll wait", I've seen some pretty poor results.

I need to lose weight, but I'll wait - and I've gained 40 pounds that I need to lose now.
I want to start a business, but I'll wait - and in the meantime, I've seen 4 new nationwide success stories of similar businesses started by women who didn't wait.
I need to get our budget done, but I'll wait - and now our financial issues are harder than ever.

Moving forward - being intentional and saying "I WILL" is scary and difficult. But I better figure it out. The clock is ticking and I don't want my chances to say "I will" become "I wish I had".

What about you?  What does getting intentional mean to you? What does it look like?