How intentional are you about how you live your life? Are you the kind of person that just takes life as it happens? Do you bounce around and find yourself wherever life takes you? Or are you the kind of person who likes to take control of your life and be intentional about how you live?
If my experience tells me anything when it comes to our spiritual lives most of us likely take the more hands-off approach. I am sure that all of us put some effort in, but probably not what we should. We may show up at a church once in a while. If a friend or loved one passes away, we of course reflect on eternity for a time. If we are parents, we try and make sure that our kids have some kind of exposure to spiritual things. Most people I meet tell me that they want their kids to learn so they can decide for themselves.
The problem with this approach is that when something serious does come up most of us don’t know where to turn. We become like the person who gets sick and doesn’t have a doctor. We look up our symptoms on google and find some miracle cure for a disease that we think we have and hope for the best. Ask any doctor and I am guessing that they will tell you that internet can be helpful but can only take you so far.
We should approach our spiritual lives like we approach our physical lives. We know that the food we eat is critical to our physical health. We also know that our bodies need regular exercise as well as regular sleep. If we fail to take care of some of these very basic needs our bodies will be begin to show it. The same holds true with our spiritual lives. If we are going to be healthy spiritually, then we need to be intentional about feeding ourselves spiritually, exercising our spiritual lives and taking time to rest and refocus spiritually.
Years ago I met a young lady who was wanting to get married. We were talking about connections; and she shared about a Bible camp that she went to when she was a little girl. She told me that it was then that she became a Christian. However, from that point in her life, she admitted to me that she really had not done much of anything to help her grow spiritually since then. Sadly, I have found this to be very typical. We profess belief and then we drift. We show up to church, but we don’t engage. We listen to a podcast or sermon online but we don’t discern. We embrace ideas but we don’t apply them.
We all know that the decisions we make have consequences for better or for worse. However we need to recognize that we are not just physical beings. We are actually primarily spiritual beings and the decisions we make don’t just impact us in this physical life but also for eternity. In the Bible, a guy by the name of Paul is trying to encourage some friends from Ephesus. In the course of writing his letter, he writes the following words:
Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Ephesians 5:15-16
This is a great reminder that we need to think about our decisions not just from a purely physical standpoint but also from a spiritual one. We need to be intentional about our spiritual journey.
Jesus himself tells us in his famous Sermon On The Mount found in the book of Matthew that the “gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” There are two elements to this worth noting. The first is that the gate is narrow. The way to life is through Jesus. The second part is that the spiritual journey is hard. This can mean a lot of things, but in part it means that we need to be disciplined, focused, and intentional about our own spiritual growth. In other words growing spiritually is hard work. We can’t just show up to church and expect to be transformed. We can’t just send our kids to some program and expect them to change.
I have found that life seems to work so much better, including our spiritual lives, when we live it intentionally.