January is past -- and now February is also. It's more than time for me to write this word of the year post. I've been struggling to pull my thoughts into coherent form, but I need to stop putting it off and just write and see where it goes.
I can start, obviously, with a simple dictionary definition of my word for the year:
So that is pretty straightforward. Done on purpose; deliberate.
I want all that I do to be done on purpose. The first time I ever chose a word for the year was in 2013, and I chose the word
purpose. In that 2013 post, I noted that I chose that word because I want to live my life on
purpose, and I want to be daily living out God's
purposes for my life.
And I am still committed to that. I want to live my life on purpose, and I want all that I do each day to be moving me toward one or more of God's purposes for my life.
I'll mention those purposes again for those who may not have seen them. (Some of these very same purposes may well be yours also!)
GOD'S PURPOSES FOR MY LIFE
Overarching purpose: To bring honor
and glory to God with my life (using the spiritual gifts and the
talents He has equipped me with) as I seek to:
1) Be a godly wife [includes being a good homemaker], mother, and grandmother.
2)
Use my teaching gifts (and other spiritual gifts -- giving , helps,
hospitality, serving) for God's glory -- to encourage fellow believers
and help them grow, and to reach out to those who don't yet know Him.
3)
Use my writing talents (and other talents -- crafts, cooking, home
decorating, etc.) for God's glory -- again, to encourage the family of
God and to be a testimony and an outreach to those who don't yet know
Him.
As I read through these again, they helped to clarify my thinking as to what I will be intentional about.
The first one, the overarching purpose, is the same, actually, for every believer. But the specifics will look different for many of us.
1) I'm a wife, a mother of three adult children, and a grandmother of fourteen. I'm an aunt, a niece, and a cousin. My primary human responsibility is, of course, my husband, and I need to be much more intentional in my care of him and just nurturing our relationship in general. It's easy after over 50 years to take some things for granted and not be as intentional. One thing I am seeking to work on is being a better friend to him.
As a mom, I always want to be intentional in praying for my kids and their spouses. To that end, I have a list that I am praying for each of them. And I seek to always be purposeful in not offering advice (unless it is asked for). Oh, I might suggest a home remedy or two, but not advice on life or spiritual things unless they ask. I also seek to be a help to my local daughter with things like cooking or cleaning if she has a particularly busy week.
I do pray for each of my grandchildren every day. Some years ago I wrote this
prayer for my grandchildren which expresses well the intentionality with which I pray for them, but I do pray for individual needs as well. Salvation for some; spiritual and character growth; mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health for all. I pray about their decision-making, their schoolwork, their future spouses, their jobs, and much, much more. I also seek to encourage them in person and sometimes by email. Because I have an Etsy shop, I've been able to advise my local granddaughter who sells on Etsy about a few questions she has had. Quite a few years ago I wrote a monthly, or semi-monthly, newsletter I called the Grammy Gazette, to keep the grandkids up to date with happenings in our lives. At least one grandson is wishing I would revive that, and I just might!
2) God has given me spiritual gifts that I can use to glorify Him. Isn't that astounding? So I need to be purposeful about using those gifts, and I seek to do just that. There are opportunities to use every one of my gifts at church, but also in daily life. Bringing someone a meal is just as much hospitality as opening one's home, for example. If we know our spiritual gifts, we must be developing them and using them. Helps is a spiritual gift I can also use in my volunteer job. I use my teaching gifts in Sunday School and occasionally in other contexts, as well as here on my blog for Sunday Scripture posts.
3) And then whatever skills and talents I possess -- those also are to be used to glorify God. I like to cook, decorate, and I like to be creative. I have some writing skills. I have years of experience in cleaning, which I've been able to put to use at my volunteer job and in helping to clean our church building on a regular basis. I can also blog about all of these things and encourage others in that way as well.
Using my gifts, talents and skills intentionally is an ongoing goal in my days, weeks, and months. But I am seeking to become much more intentional in my use of time. As I age, I'm becoming increasingly aware of just how limited my remaining time on this earth might be, and am purposing to use every bit of time to the glory of God.
In
this article in The Epoch Times, Walker Larson notes that "Time is our most valuable resource because it’s the most limited. Once lost, it’s lost forever." He adds that time is the "resource by which we acquire all other resources, which makes it the most powerful one of all. Without time, we can’t experience or enjoy anything else in life. Time is the very medium of life itself." And that's such a sobering thought! Larson noted that he once heard this saying: "Our priorities are what we do. Everything else is just talk." And he commented, "We show what we really care about by what we spend our most precious resources on."
Elizabeth George says something similar: "We dare not waste our most precious resource: our lives."
My use of the book
Fix Your Focus over the past 40-plus weeks has really helped me to use my time much more intentionally. I shared also about a planning tool -- a
weekly calendar schedule that I've been using along with
Fix Your Focus to make a real difference in my weeks.
I'm also seeking to be more intentional in my interactions with people -- to make it a goal that they will be encouraged in some way or somehow pointed to God through time together, however brief it may be.
And those are just a few ways in which I'm seeking to live out my word of the year. We will see how I do over the next ten months.
