Intentionality

What are you doing today that is intentional? One thing that I have discovered of late is this: if you don't intentionally pursue your destination, the odds of chaos increase exponentially.

Think about it.

*If you are driving your car somewhere, and you don't drive towards your destination on purpose, you are more than likely going to get lost.

*If you don't tackle the house project that is before you with intention, than you are more than likely going to end up with multi colored walls, crooked lines, mismatched furniture, and a headache from arguing with your spouse.

*If you don't raise your children on purpose, then they are more than likely going to take their own path, which is not always the best path.

*If you don't live your marriage with intention, then you take the chance that you will drift in your love.

The examples could continue, but let's look at the driving example for a minute. If you are lucky enough to own a GPS then you will understand this analogy very well.

To go somewhere that you have never been you first have to enter the address into the GPS, give it a couple of moments to compute the best possible route, and then you must follow the directions turn by turn so that you will safely reach your destination. If for some reason your GPS has directed you on a route that has a road block, then with the simple click of a button, you can find the best detour so that you remain on track to reach your desired location.

Life must be lived this way. If you and I pursue our destination on accident we will either never reach that destination or we will make it, but we will make it later than we should.

All of us have dreams and hopes that we would like to reach in our life. We have stories to write, conversations to have, lives to impact, children to raise, love stories to engage in, and differences to make.

If we leave that to chance, we may or may not get there, and we will probably spend the majority of our time fighting fires on rabbit trails.

Whatever area of life you are needing to focus on with more intentionality take into consideration the following thoughts:

*Identify where you would like to go

*Program life's GPS

*Pray for God's direction

*Ask other people who have been down the same road to help give you directions

*Read a book about the lives of other people and how they reached their destinations

*If life throws you a roadblock, hit the detour button

*Pray (Where does God want you to detour)

*Ask others who have hit the same roadblocks to give you directions

Don't live life accidentally.

Live life intentionally!

A Million Miles In A Thousand Years

I have recently finished reading Donald Miller's newest book; "A Million Miles In A Thousand Years." Let me just get it out of the way and state - this is a must read. This is the third writing of Miller's that I have read, and I have yet to be disappointed. Donald Miller writes with a level a candidness that few others do. The main take away for me from this book is; we are all living a story, which is a part of a grander story, let's make the stories of our lives worth reading. Don weaves the stories of his own life and the life of others through the truths of this book. In the end, I realized that I had laughed out loud, cried, and finished the book wanting to take a hike, feed a starving child, climb a mountain, or mentor a boy without a father. Today, I am committed more than ever before to writing the story of my life so that others will want to read it!