Two Verses to Help You Live With Intention

 by Rebecca Kiser

The past couple of months these same two bible verses started popping up everywhere and in a hundred different contexts: 

Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

Psalms 16:11, “In Your presence is fullness of joy.”

The more they kept showing up, the more I struggled to understand why. Yes, they’re amazing bible verses but how do they apply to my life? It didn’t hit me until I was watching the Today show one morning (with one boxer next to me and the other on top of me, because that’s life at my house) and Kathie Lee and Hoda were talking about New Year’s resolutions. 

Our New Year’s resolutions are things we believe will make us happy. They are the things we want to achieve, they are our dreams, they are our ideal lives. But God didn’t design us to chase goals and ideals to make us happy - he molded each of us around a common need for Him, and fulfilling that desire is the only way to experience true, complete happiness. 

This, of course, is not to say that we aren’t all individuals with unique desires and aspirations, so I took to social media, asking two questions to discover what everyone hopes for 2019: 

What is your New Year’s resolution?
Here are the responses: 

To leave the past in the past
To impress people and give my name value
To do a devotion every day
To spend more time in Bible study
Learn how to say no to people
Be more consistent with activities 
Save more money
Be a stronger mom
Lose weight (3 times)
To not take things personally
To share my faith more
Adopt a new way to exercise
To limit my social media usage
To end 2019 knowing I worked on my physical, mental, and spiritual self
To put forth more effort and live with intentionality

What is something you want to happen in your life in 2019? (job, achievement, etc.)
Here are the responses: 

Finish the semester with all A’s
Get a summer job
Get an internship
Be in a leadership position in church
Finish the year with a 3.5+ GPA
Find out how to eat as many chicken nuggets as I can without getting fat
Grow my relationship with God
Seek God’s will for my life
Start a relationship
Move and start a new career
To sell my house
To write 
To be organized

Here’s where the bible verses come in. 

Let’s start with Ephesians 3:20. Here Paul says that you basically have two options: you can pursue your dreams on your own, or you can give them over to God, tell him what you want, and believe that he will make them happen. 

Basically anyone who’s ever made a new year’s resolution knows that going at it without a plan or a support system is a guaranteed way to lose sight of it by February. In order to make it last all year you have to live with intention, and you have to be passionate. In the same way, if you take your deepest, most real dreams and desires and do nothing but hope they come true, there’s a pretty decent chance they won’t. But if you give them to God, the one who knows you more than anyone, the one who sees the entire plan, and live with intention through prayer and obedience to Him, He will fulfill your hearts desires. 

You guys, God created us and He put those desires inside of us. He doesn’t want to see us spend our whole lives wishing; He wants us to live out those dreams, but it can only happen if we trust Him. He will take your deepest heart’s desire and do immeasurably more than you could ever do on your own. 

Psalms 16:11 focuses on the other side of our dreams, the part that says God is the only thing that can fulfill us. The more this verse showed up, the more I realized that it is intentionally so simple and direct. 
It doesn’t say, “In Your presence with my dream job is fullness of joy.” 
It doesn’t say, “In Your presence with my dream body is fullness of joy.” 
It doesn’t say, “In Your presence with my dream boyfriend is fullness of joy.” 

It says, “In Your presence is fullness of joy.” There’s nothing missing, and nothing else is required. God is enough when you intentionally draw into his presence. 

Starting today, live with intention. Trust God with your dreams, but remember where true joy comes from. 

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