Living with intent to be content

There are so many times when we as modern people seem to blown all over the place by our circumstances. We do not seem to be intentional about what we are doing, a lot of us seem to "go with the flow". Which is fine if you don't want to take any responsibility for your life and actions, because then it can be someone else's fault. The "Que sera sera" attitude seems to be quite prevalent with Christians and non Christians. But is this scriptura?l I don't think so.

It would seem to me that Jesus was quite intentional about his activity. He was focussed on the things he had to do. He lived life with the end in mind as he headed toward the cross. He did not travel in a straight line but he acted with intent. That effected all the people around him because they may not have got what was going on, but his intentionality guided them anyway. The Bible tells us we are the" head not the tail" but do we act that way?  Are we in effect leading those around because we know where we are going, when most of those around us don't?

Interestingly I have spent the last 8 months reading  the first 3 habits of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey. My discovery by slowing putting these habits into my life is that is that they can be easily aligned with the life style of Jesus. The other thing that I have noticed is that you become more content with wherever you are, when you are intentional about what you are doing and where you are going. Because even when your not in an ideal place, it is not the destination just a staging point towards your intentional end. So therefore from here we will continue to travel forward, i.e. it brings hope of something better. Not just a "pipe dream" but something you are actively engaged with.  I will talk about some of the other things that I have learned form Mr Covey in the next couple of weeks.

If we are followers of Jesus, simple logic will tell us we are to follow him, (which was after all his first instruction to his disciples) and that we probably should. Therefore live life intentionally with the end mind. and if you not sure what the end looks like for you, now is good time to ask!!

Living life with intent to be content

When the spark plug dies!!

I was mowing the lawn this morning and the lawn mower was going along OK and then it just died. So I had a quick look round. What was wrong? A lawn mower is pretty basic, there are usually only  two things that go wrong.
No Petrol!
No Spark!

Well I checked the petrol and well there was very little, so I naturally assumed this must be the problem, so I topped it up with petrol  and low and behold it still won't go. So I checked the spark plug and boy was it wet and sooty no wonder it didn't work. I took it out and cleaned it up with a wire brush, then put it back in and wow what result. I put it back to the throttle setting it had been running on and it absolutely roared into life.

I realised that it had been slowly getting more and more sooty over the last months and the performance was dropping and I just compensated by giving it more gas. Then I saw the analogy between the spark and the petrol. The spark plug is God's input; our communication to and from him. At times it can get slowly cut off like soot on the spark plug and sometimes cut off completely like my lawn mower. The petrol is the amount of our human effort needed to follow him, but at times just effort to try and survive. When our communication slows or fades we must increase our effort just to keep going.
My advice is to your keep spark plug clean ( God's communication), it saves a lot on petrol (your effort)

Do yourself a favour give yourself a God tune up!

'Excuse me Sir your Flight has been delayed"

After you have spent some time in the wilderness and you get the clear picture of where you supposed to be going and that the time is imminent you can get a little impatient. Well I can at any rate. I like you, live in in an instant age, unlike God however where one can day be like 1000 years. So we are functioning with different perceptions about what imminent might look like.

I have had confirmations that the concept I have about what is next is right and that need for what is about to happen is right.  However I have been had it suggested by God that I will need patience on couple of recent occasions. I am beginning to understand what it must have been like for David as he was anointed King. at 16 and finally reigned as king at 30. 'I sorry Sir your flight has been delayed by 14 years."

I guess in that time he became closer to  becoming "a man after God's own heart". What he learned in the 14years was about the heart of God. What he learned in that time was to have confidence in himself but much more importantly he learned to have confidence in his GOD. So that when he reigned he knew his Lord.

So I will patiently wait with all the grace that I can muster and hopefully all the grace  God will give. Then I may be able to step into the shoes I am expected to fill with total confidence in MY GOD!!

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus - Philippians 1:6 NIV

I have time...... in fact I have an eternity>

Sharing a little confidence

As I said in the previous blog I have been reading a book  on leadership and creative thinking which has started me thinking on a number of things. This is revalation hit me in the face this morning. The author was using a lot of historical military examples for his points (a real boys book) and he was talking about the Islamic assault against the Knights of St John on the island of Malta in 1565. The author wrote this"....he had already lost hundreds of his fighters and even more importantly, his troops had begun to lose confidence."

 

Fear is attributed as the cause of many people not entering the fight when real difficulty arises. However after reading that sentence I became aware of how important confidence is in our lives. When our confidence becomes eroded things that we could once do with ease become mountains to be climbed. Many situations and trials can leave us without confidence in God, ourselves, in our ability, we are not quite sure what happened and why it happened. I believe that attacking our confidence is a direct and highly effective strategy of our enemy, left unchecked this strategy can immobilise and cause us to be a spent force in situations we face. Lacking confidence  may eventually cause us to step away from our God given call.

 

I can relate to this in my own recent experience, it can be a tactic of the enemy through people and situations to erode your confidence. Once we begin to identify what we are facing, we can take some steps to deal with our problem.

What am I not confident in?: myself ? the situation? God? my ability to do this task? Then start to address the process. Preparation to face any given situation can help build your confidence. Coming out of a situation knowing that you did OK because of your preparation,  can make the next difficult situation a little easier. You did not lose your confidence overnight so it will take a while to rebuild as it will for me.  I can control my level of preparation and  not leave it to chance, therefore I become stronger.

 

This can apply to the preparation I make with my Heavenly Father. Have I spent the time I need to in my Prayer Closet? Do I know well the knowledge and skills I need in this situation? Part of my preparation will also be spending time with  people who  speak "life" into me,  to encourage me. ( To encourage means to share courage).

 

There is a book title that says "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" This is great advice so  remember that your Heavenly Father has confidence in you when you have none in yourself. Listen to the still small voice that says " I love you, you can do this, I believe in you"

"Courage faces fear and thereby masters it.
Cowardice represses fear and is thereby mastered by it"
Martin Luther King Jnr.

Time to step back in the ring one small step at a time. You won't win every time but you won't fall as far back either. If this not you, who can you encourage? .... Share a little confidence.