Living Intentionally

by Michelle Gill - www.calledishshah.com
Used by permission

The one thing that I am focusing on for this new year is living with intention.  Time passes and tasks get done and events come and go - all the while there are things and ways of living that I would like to incorporate into my life.  It will never happen unless I choose to live life intentionally, on purpose.

One of my desires is to start my day full of His Spirit.  Then to hear Him throughout the day, every day instead of just when I have time.  That will only happen on purpose.

I would like to live a life of noticing people and investing.  I tend to rush around trying to get things done and avoiding what may take my time for someone else.  I don't want to live another year and look back wondering what a life lived out is supposed to look like.  Investing in others is a goal.

I encourage you to examine your thoughts with intention.  Is your thinking TRUTH or just another Christian cliche?  An example of a cliche that burns me up is "He will not give your more than you can handle."  Where do people get that?  He says He will provide a way of escape from temptation, that is usually the verse they point to if they have to give a verse to back it up.  I have been through plenty I could not handle. Thank God that He could handle me.  Intentionally examine your thinking and fill it with truth.  I have been learning this for several years now and realize how much flows from the way we think and what we believe.

I want to intentionally see my daughter, Casi, and watch her heart growing.  I want to hear what people are saying to me when they are speaking, the way they want to be heard.  I want to learn to create a garden and preserve food.  I want to be intentional about what I eat.  I want to move my body throughout the whole day.  I want to create the art that I see in my mind.

Intent takes time and thought but it brings a richness to life that we would ordinarily just be flying by, if we didn't choose to slow down.  It enables us to actually hear His Spirit.  He has created us to be creative like Him.  He has created us to invest in Him and others.  Live this year that He has for you with intention, on purpose.  Live intentionally.

Five Lessons from Elisabeth Elliott

Used by permission

November 5, 2015 by Susie Hawkins 8 Comments

Few women have had an impact on the kingdom of God as has Elisabeth Elliot. Her remarkable insights and words of wisdom continue to shape us, even after her death and years of illness. Here are just five truths I have gleaned from her devotional book “A Lamp for My Feet.” Published in 1985, it remains on my list of books I regularly re-read.

“Thy List Be Done” – His List, Not Mine

Women always have multiple lists going – shopping needs, errands to be run, answering emails or correspondence, calls to be made, prayer lists, etc. Inevitably, we will have interruptions and won’t accomplish what we hoped. The lists get longer instead of shorter! Elisabeth experienced that frustration on more than one occasion and wrote, “Because God is my sovereign Lord, I was not worried. He manages perfectly day and night, year in and year out, the movements of the starts, the wheeling of the planets, the staggering coordination of events that goes on on the molecular level in order to hold things together. There’s no doubt that He can manage the timing of days and weeks. So I can pray in confidence, ‘Thy list, not mine, be done.'”

“Wastelands”- Don’t Look for Shortcuts

At some time we all experience “dry, fruitless, lonely places.”  Using Exodus 13:17, Elisabeth points out that these times are not wasted for the Christian. “God did not guide them by the road towards the Philistines, although that was the shortest….God intentionally took them by way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. “If they had gone their own way, they would have missed the deliverance from Egypt’s chariots when the sea was rolled back. Lets not ask for shortcuts. Let’s keep alert for the wonders our Guide will show us in the wilderness.”

“Volunteer Slaves” – Serving with Joy

Our service to Christ is in the sense of a volunteer slave, or a servant who loves her master with all her heart. It is not “forced labor,” but the “purest joy when it is most unobserved, most unself-conscious, most simple, most freely offered.” Don’t minimize the service in small acts – cooking a meal, consoling a discouraged friend, forgiving a failure. “Let me not imagine that my love for You is very great if I am unwilling to do for human being something very small.” Ouch.

“Apportioned Limitation” – Accepting Your Field of Service

God sets limitations on “the scope of our work”, in that He has appointed us to a certain “sphere”. “We will keep to the limits God has apportioned us” (2 Cor. 10:13). Jesus did that – becoming a baby, a growing child, an adolescent, a man, each stage “bounded by its peculiar strictures, yet each offering adequate scope in which to glorify His Father.” God is glorified when we work in the place He has set us. “Let me not covet another’s place or work or glory”

“First Be Quiet” – Learning Silence

“Our hectic lives involve many changes, and changes require decisions, and decisions must often be made in the midst of a multitude of confusions.” Instead of constantly asking others’ advice, Elisabeth suggests practicing quietness. She points out how Jesus deliberately sought solitude during the non-stop days of His ministry. “The more hectic our lives become, the more necessary is this quietness.” When it is not possible to get away to a place of solitude to pray for a day, then “do not speak about the decision to anyone but God for forty eight hours at least. Just hold it before Him alone. Keep your mouth shut for two days. Pray. Listen. Seek his counsel.” Or this, “Sit before Him for fifteen consecutive minutes in silence, focusing … on Psalm 86:11, ‘Guide Me, O Lord…”

What have you learned from Elisabeth?

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Filed Under: Spiritual Growth

Susie Hawkins

Susie lives in Dallas, TX with her husband OS Hawkins. She is the author of "From One Ministry Wife to Another: Honest Conversations on Connections in Ministry". She has 2 daughters and 6 grandchildren, keeping her life full of craziness and joy.