Remember, God does not divide our lives into different areas, he wants all of it. He wants our home life, our work life, our spiritual life, and even our recreational life to be directed by Him…and bring praise glory, and honor to Him. He has a plan and a purpose, He has a will and a desired outcome for every area of our lives…but it must be our desire, our will, and our intention to seek it, find it, and do it!
It doesn’t matter how spiritual you act in church. It doesn’t matter how much money you give. It doesn’t matter how often you attend. It doesn’t matter who your friends and family are. It doesn’t matter if you’re a member of a church. What matters is your answer to the question; “Do you really know God? Are you intentionally living the life he desires for you? The full, and abundant life? Or are you allowing circumstances, people, money, position, or anything besides God, dictate your life and your time for you?
I believe that living that way is the main cause of stress in our lives. We have all things that we “intend” to do but don’t or we believe we can’t…and they are a source of stress. We need a change! We need to take control!
John Maxwell has said “Change is not a once and for all kind of thing - if only it were that easy. No, changing ourselves is a lifelong process." Not only that, but we must be intentional about how we want to change. I find that we often make two mistakes in this area. First, we often sit around and wait for God to change our circumstances. Second, we wait for circumstances to change our attitude and our behavior. Is it any wonder that some people change so little? Most people fail to see that life is moving on at a rapid speed. None of us have all the time we'd like to have…and, in fact, we are not getting any more…so we need to take control and make the best of the time we have. Trust me, just a few years ago I was 25 and now I am 65…Someone once said that the only person who really wants change are the wet babies!
If you see an area you need to change, CHANGE NOW. I'm not talking about cosmetic changes. That's where we change our talking but not our thinking; we change our environment instead of our expectations; our appearance instead of our attitudes; our business instead of our behavior; and our biases instead of our beliefs.
Rather than intentionally changing ourselves, too many of us are “wisher’s”…content with dreaming about the results we desire from life and wonder why they remain just that - “dreams, and wishes”!
If we desire God’s best for our lives…If we desire to live with less stress…If we desire to change the results we are getting in the eight areas of life mentioned…Then we must intentionally do it! It is a process, but we have to start somewhere. God operates in an intentional manner and I believe our lives will be better if we do also. Remember…If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got!
If we want to relieve stress and take control of our lives, then we need to find our purpose or our priorities in each of the eight areas of our lives…then produce a plan that will help us discipline ourselves to intentionally take control of those things which will produce results that will amaze us!
We need to define the areas of stress in our lives, which are usually our real priorities in each area that we would like to see happen, but never do, because we have allowed everything and everyone to set our agenda, day in and day out! We need to seek and find those undone priorities in each area of our lives such as our families, our work, our church, our physical health as well as our financial goals and dreams, and most of all we must make the decision to do something about taking control of this life that God has given us. We need to intentionally seek it, find it, and do it.
We need to first understand that we are talking about our present and our future, we can’t change the past, but, we can change the future from this day forward. And, we can change every important area of our lives from this day forward, in ways that we never thought possible. We can get excited about life because we know we serve a God who is able to do “exceedingly, abundantly, more than we could ever ask, think, or dream! His Word says “with God, all things are possible” the key word being “with”. That’s called a positive faith. It’s a partnership!
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