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?

2 comments:

Geekwif said...

Yay! You wrote a blog post! (I need to get back to doing so too.)

I think intentional means taking it one step further than saying "I will". I've said "I will" a million times and then done nothing. It's the action that really matters, whether that means sitting down and creating a business plan and then doing what it takes to build that business, or walking past the ice cream aisle in the grocery store without stopping.

I agree; it's scary and difficult, but worth it in the end.

sonya shay said...

I can totally relate to what you wrote. I'm not sure what my issue's are actually, other than a huge lack of motivation, and the feeling of being constantly tired. I do ask God to forgive me all day long...because I know I'm letting him down. Each item that you wrote about...the weight, the finances....starting a business, are exactly the SAME area's that have been ringing in my head ALL THE TIME. I've gained weight, instead of losing, I feel worse than before, and really, who couldn't use better financial planning that moi'? Ugh. Lets pray for each other....we can do this. Maybe what we need it to be accountable, finally, once and for all. And then for some reason, I find away around that too. Grrr!