Colossians 3:23-24 and 2 Peter 1:3-15
Are there any benefits to this idea of
living intentional lives? I believe this question can be answered in the premise
I gave you in the beginning...“If we do not have an agenda for our lives, one
will be provided for us—either by the events of life itself, or by other
people.” Intentional Living means that we are taking control and determining
how we will live our lives and spend our time, our energy and our resources.
Without such a plan, life can easily “get away from us” and because we never
accomplish those things that are most important in our lives…we live with
stress in our families, stress at work, stress with our finances, stress in
every area of life. That’s why
intentional living is such an important issue. “If we always do what we have
always done; we will always get what we have always got!”
The reason I have been looking into the
intentional life is because I think there are many Christians in our churches
today who are “sea-sick”! Seasickness is
motion sickness. There are many people who wish the world would just stop for a
while so they can catch their breath and catch up. Most of those people have
lives filled with activity for which there is no clear cut purpose. They often
become disoriented, distressed and sometimes even become physically sick due
the constant motion of their lives which has no purpose. We need an anchor! An
anchor makes sure that the motion can only go so far before we are drawn back. Intentional
Living is a guide to keep us on course and ensure we are focusing on the right
things.There is a story involving Yogi Berra, the well-known catcher for the New York Yankees, and Hank Aaron, who at the time was the chief power hitter for the Milwaukee Braves. The teams were playing in the World Series, and as usual Yogi was keeping up his ceaseless chatter intended to pep up his team-mates and distract the Milwaukee batters. As Aaron came to the plate, Yogi tried to distract him by saying, "Henry, can’t you read? You’re holding the bat wrong. You’re supposed to hold it so you can read the trademark.” Aaron didn’t say anything. When the next pitch came he hit a homerun into the left field bleachers. After rounding the bases and reaching home plate, Aaron looked at Yogi and said, “I didn’t come up here to read.” Knowing your purpose helps keep you on track. It allows you to ignore the things that can easily distract you and take your attention away from the things that really matter in your life.
It has been rightly said that “good is the enemy of the best.” There are many people who have had and done good things in life, and they say that they have had a “good” life but they have never known life in all its fullness. They have never experienced the abundant life. The life of having balance in the eight areas of priority in life.The problem with most of us is not that we haven’t had opportunity, it’s that we lack discipline.
There is, of course, great benefit in discipline. By discipline I do not mean punishment or correction. Rather, I am talking about the self-control it takes to do the right things. All of us have had many good intentions about doing the things that matter most in our lives. But, we have always allowed “this” and “that” to take up our time. When we discipline ourselves to an intentional time budget, and actually mark it on the calendar, and just do it; we take control. Discipline helps you do the right things and get the best results. Discipline is what makes a gold medal winner a winner! It’s like the saying I once heard a preacher use—THE MAIN THING IS TO KEEP THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING. It’s like the movie “The City Slickers” … In the movie the rugged old cowboy tells Billy Crystal that the secret to his peace in life was finding that “one thing!” In other words, invest your time, energy and resources on the right things in your life, and the return, or the reward, will be more than you imagined.
Have you ever noticed that it’s often easier to live a shallow life than to deal with it on a deeper level? It reminds me of a swimming pool. There is a shallow end and a deep end. Many people like to live life in the shallow end because the risk is minimal. The problem is that a person is limited in what they can do there. However, some feel it’s a good trade to not have to deal with the uncertainty and danger of the deep end. I have a book in my library by Chuck Swindol called; “Living Above The Level Of Mediocrity” that would be a great book to read as it concerns a “commitment to excellence”. When In search of the abundant life he would say; “Live in the deep end!”
Life is a risk. To confront the risk brings greater reward, satisfaction and fulfillment than staying in the shallow end ever will. Let me say one last thing about the shallow end—the one major crisis we have all heard about in pools happens in the shallow end. Someone decides to dive in head first and hits his head on the bottom. In some cases this has proved to be disastrous. But the trauma occurred when someone tried to do something in the shallow end that was not possible there. If he had gone to the deep end, he could have completed his dive and come up with the thrill and satisfaction of accomplishment.
M. Scott Peck writes in his book “The Road Less Traveled”, “I spent much of my ninth summer on a bicycle. About a mile from our house the road went down a steep hill and turned sharply at the bottom. Coasting down the hill one morning, I felt my gathering speed to be ecstatic. To give up this ecstasy by applying brakes seemed an absurd self-punishment. So I resolved to simultaneously retain my speed and negotiate the corner. My ecstasy ended seconds later when I was propelled a dozen feet off the road into the woods. I was badly scratched and bleeding, and the front wheel of my new bike was twisted beyond use from its impact against a tree. I had been unwilling to suffer the pain of giving up my ecstatic speed in the interest of maintaining my balance around the corner. I learned, however, that the loss of balance is ultimately more painful.”
The point is that there are some people who seem to focus only on one area of their lives - such as ( physical health ) or (recreation- - leisure) making sure they allot special time to those areas…Usually at the expense of all the other areas. The problem of course, is that there is stress in the imbalance, and these people usually opt for pleasure rather than pain…So, when the wife starts to complain about the fact that they are always out playing golf rather than doing what needs to be done around the house; the next thing you know, they are in divorce court! When there is stress at work, they go from job to job. When the spirit suffers, they just plain quit going to church or feeding their intellect, and so on.
However, I believe that it only makes sense, that when purpose and discipline come together in all of the areas of our lives, we begin to find balance. Balance in our time, balance in where we focus our energy, and balance in the use of our resources. Living an intentional life will lead you through life’s journey with definite destinations in mind. You will be taking control of these things in your life, and stress will be replaced by happiness, peace, and a true sense of accomplishment. But, most of all, we will have found balance in our out of control lives.
I don’t like to use scripture in a way that may be out of context, but there is wisdom to be found in the Book of James when I think of the application to intentional living; James 4:1-3 says “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures”. And from James 1:22-25 - “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror, and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it - he will be blessed in what he does.”
If you haven’t yet, why not start living “INTENTIONALLY” today.
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