“Oops I did it again.”
Brittany Spears
It seems odd to quote Ms Brittany as the source of inspiration for a future hope. But those 5 words have been the summation of my life lived. “Oops I did it again.”
Up to this point my life has been lived out as series of circumstantial events. Choices, decision and goals seemingly set on the pathway of least resistance to mediocrity. Inside a spirit was crying out to break the chains of status quo.
I have lived my life boxed in by the word “potential”. Always living in a way that has kept me short of the fullness of who I was to become. More importantly, who God was asking me to be for him.
While each year goals would be set. Ambitions be determined. Hopes inflated like a birthday balloon. Somewhere along the road the helium keeping hope in the air depleted. And my life was left once again deflated.
The truth of the matter is I am exactly where I am not because of what has happened to me. But in most honest reflection, by the choices I made. I would say by the choices I didn’t make, but even in not making a choice, I made a choice. And the end of each year, goals not met, life seemingly unchanged, Brittany rang true again “oops, I did it again.”
As check marks on the calendar started to close in on the end of 2016, I was challenged to choose one word to define, shape and give direction to 2017. The inescapable piece of grammatical compass to set a direction for my new year was the word: INTENTIONAL.
Being intentional is determining to act a certain way. It is the determination to pursue goals in spite of circumstance. It is the determination to pursue callings in spite of fear. It is the determination to live life in the fullness and break out of the status quo that has put a boundary line in life.
Fear has a way of taking prisoner life and holding it hostage until you relent on what it is you set out to do. I have so many years lived shackled up to mediocrity. The enemy of our life does not always have to destroy the dream as long he can simply whisper in your ear you are not enough. To step into being intentional requires speaking out against the fear that has too often shaped the choices that have left life in a holding pattern of mediocrity.
Status quo is not the place of God’s calling. Jesus said “I have come to bring you life and life full.” The fullness of the life lived for Jesus is minus fear, worry and the chains of disbelieving. Fullness of life with Christ is stepping into making intentional choices and decisions that determine a pathway that leads to his design and plan for my life and your life.
Being intentional is waking with the decision to work. Not go to a job, because I actually have 2 of those. It is the choice to work on me, work on and in the dream, work in the one thing God’s has called me to be.
Paul wrote about it this way:
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. Colossians 3:23-24
We have a job as followers of Christ, one that I should have been fired from long ago. That job is to live life in every facet with a passion as if we were doing it for Jesus. Blogging for Jesus. Raising kids for Jesus. Even, despite my objection, sitting in a cubicle for Jesus. We must live out with INTENTIONALITY. If we don’t we end up right were we have always sat.
Because as the great apostles says: It is the Lord Christ you are serving.
2017 is the year of being intentional. It is the year of shaking off the shackles of unfulfilled potential. It is the year I dream, live, and fully become Jeff. It is the year I don’t give a shout out to Brittany…I am not going to do it again.
Do you have a word for 2017? Share it with me in the comments.
