INTENTIONAL LIVING - It's a Choice.

4:04 PM Kaitlyn 0 Comments

Would you rather float down a lazy river or swim across the ocean? That's an easy question for me; I'd pick lazy river nearly every time. I love the relaxation and ease. You don't have to really worry about where you're floating; the jet streams do that for you. You get to kick back and relax. Swimming the ocean, however, is vastly different and way more difficult. You actually have to make decisions. You are the one that has to take control, or else the ocean will control you. At the beginning of this year, I was thinking about what I wanted to focus on this year. A few years ago, I'd done the one word challenge, and I knew I wanted to do it again this year.

I chose Intentional as my word of 2018. Intentional means "done with intention or on purpose; intended," according to dictionary.com. I want to choose God first in every circumstance. I want to choose to be joyful despite my emotions. I want to choose to love even when that other person isn't loving me back. I want to choose to be like Jesus. I want to choose life, not death. I want to choose to speak life to everyone. I want to choose to be FEARLESS and FREE and STRONG.

I've finally chosen a tagline for The SoCal Gal: "Intentionally living with purpose." As Christians, in our walk with God, we must choose our daily decisions. Everything we do affects something. Did you thank the last person who gave something to you? That could leave her grateful and happy for your courtesy and thankfulness. Did you yell at your little brother when he was annoying you? That could leave bitterness and make your relationship drift.

Being intentional means making choices with a specific reason in mind. One thing I would like to work on doing more intentionally is praying and reading my Bible more. I would like to exercise more self-control and gratefulness as well. It's so easy to slack off and forget to pray because "I'm so tired" or not have my devotion in the morning because "I don't have time" or give in and say yes to a bad choice because "What's one more time?"

Being intentional means saying no to ungodliness and conforming to the world. This is one problem in life that's really hit me this past year: how many Christians conform to the world. It might not always seem obvious, but doing anything that tolerates sin even a little is wrong. This could be spending time with the wrong crowd, lying, believing anything against the Bible, making social media your number one or making fun of the president.

Being intentional means knowing your purpose. What is your purpose on earth? Are you living that out, or is that "purpose" just a cover-up for what you really stand for?

In the next few posts, we'll be covering these three topics. I'm so excited for this new series! This week, I challenge you to:

• Examine your heart and ask yourself what purpose you are living for
• Is that the purpose you want it to have?
• What's something you can change to make your purpose + actions coherent?

• Pray for intentional living
• In your life
• In your family
• In your friends

• Choose to do, say and think things with purpose
• Know the impact these actions have and use them for His glory!

• Ask yourself if the current is guiding you, or are you guiding the current
• Current = the world's ways
• You can either go with the flow or go against the flow