Intentional Living

Each year I set goals and strive to achieve them.  I've done it different ways throughout the years and for the past few I have set my goals according to categories.  Generally, the categories were things like physical, spiritual, household, marriage and so on.

This year a friend shared a new concept with me and I absolutely loved it.  The idea is to pray and think about a word that you want to be your theme throughout the year.  It could be a word such as thankfulness, kindness, love, or any other concept that you want to work on throughout the year.

I started thinking and praying about it.  I took stock of what areas of my life are strong and what areas are weak.  I looked at what might need to be tweaked.  And after reflecting on it, I felt like I needed to make the following word my theme and goal for 2015.

Intentional

I want to be intentional in the coming year in the choices I make, in my walk with the Lord, and in every single aspect of my life.  If I focus on the word rather than the individual goals or resolutions, I will achieve all those things I want to do.

So I am making a deliberate choice to grow in this area in the coming year.  The theme verses I chose for this year are from 2 Peter.

2 Peter 1:5-8 (NLT) ~

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone.

The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

My desire is to live a full and productive life and the only way that will happen is if I am intentional in all my choices.  These verses reflect that to me.  As believers we are to intentionally add each of these character traits to our lives and that does take deliberate, careful attention.

One tool I will be using to make sure I'm doing this is the acronym, OARS.  Dan & I were mentored for 10 years by one of the most successful men I know.  He had been the International Field Director for the Middle East with The Navigators.  He was the General Secretary of the World Evangelical Fellowship as well as President of the American Leprosy Mission.  Every single organization he worked for flourished under his leadership.

One of the things he taught us was that every single activity, event or goal in your life should be looked at through the lens of OARS - objective, activities, resources, and schedules.  What is the objective you are trying to achieve?  What activities do you need to do to achieve that objective?  What resources are necessary?  Finally, set a timeline or schedule to achieve each activity under that objective. 

It's been such a wonderful way to achieve my goals using this method and I've tried to carry it out in many areas, even something as simple as a household project.  We are grateful to Waldron Scott for his tutelage in leadership.

So 2015 will be a year of living intentionally whether that's through my limiting my online time, losing weight, managing our finances and household and ever other aspect of my life.

I'm looking forward to seeing how God will work in the coming year!