Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Lost Intentions

I began this blog with the intentions of living a more intentional life for the Lord in order to serve Him better and to inspire more to walk in faith.  A month has gone by, so I intend now on evaluating the past month.  I am ashamed to say that I have not been intentional each day like I aimed to be for several reasons.

One, busyness is a scheme-a "half-truth"-Satan uses to keep us from intentional living.  In busyness it was easy to think I was doing something for God because I was so busy doing some things.  But here's the truth: I was less intentional of serving the Lord because I was so busy!  Balance not busyness is needed in order to remain spiritually intact.

Two, God will test any intention of serving Him.  Why?  God desires us to "be strong in the Lord" (Ephesians 6:10) because there are battles going on-a Spiritual Warfare-and we have to be ready to fight.  Testing is not something we should fear; rather, we should praise God for caring enough to include us in the fight over our souls.  Testing grabs attention.  Testing strengthens the weak areas of faith.  Testing causes dependency on God alone.  God tested me this past month, and I admit to failing in the area of intentional living.  At times I used the circumstances of my test, but at other times, I allowed the circumstances to use and rule over me.  These were the times I had lost intentions.  I've learned from this to embrace testing and "to consider it pure joy" (James 1:2).

Three, I had not been intentionally living for the Lord each day because I did not make any effort to do so.  I became self-absorbed and selfish.  I struggle with this sin.  I consume myself with my self.  Notice that no where in God's Word, in any of His commands, does it say "Honor Thyself" because we naturally already do.  We honor thyselves when we are not honoring God.  I did not honor God as much as I should have.  Honoring God is putting my own needs behind His needs.

As I sit here and reflect on all my intentions and all my failures in following through, I still sit here assured of one thing:  not all intentions are lost.  God will receive and use whatever intentions I give and follow through on.  I may not intentionally live each day for Him, but I am intent on living a life for Him.  I will keep at it, and I will take my lessons from this past month and put forth my new knowledge and my best effort toward this next month.  God bless you all in your walks of faith.

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