Being Intentional in Your Faith

I don’t remember at what church or what event I was at but I remember someone speaking about being intentional with your faith. You know like not just going to church on Sunday’s and then saying whatever with the rest of the week.

Ever since I started this blog, I have been working on being more intentional with my faith and part of that has been sharing my struggles and journey with all of you. Is it always easy or fun? Absolutely not. Do we want people to see that we are not completely put together…no! From the outside, I probably look pretty darn well put together…good husband, good job, good family, nice house, nice car…etc. and while all of those things are true…it doesn’t mean that my life is some fairytale, that I don’t have my struggles, that I haven’t had to work my butt off to get where I am at, or that my life has always been smooth sailing. I’ve hit rock bottom or darn near rock bottom several times…but you know what? It’s part of my story and my testimony. It’s not about where we have been, it’s about where we are heading.

Anyway besides posting on here and being brutally honest about myself on here…I have also started a nightly routine to be more intentional in my faith. It doesn’t always look the same each night…but here is kind of a glimpse.

Reflect, renew, read, and reach.

Reflect: about an hour or two before bed, I start the wind down process and begin with reflecting. It can take many different shapes and forms. A lot of times it’s writing about what’s on my heart on this blog (minus my cooking posts…those are just for fun). Tonight it’s in that I’m laying outside on my hammock underneath the stars, in absolute peace, writing this post. Outside is definitely my happy place and at night it is so peaceful and I feel like I can get lost in reflection.

Renew: The next part of my process is renewing myself. This is going to probably sound a little ridiculous to some of you, but I literally wash away my worries and burdens from the day with worship. What does that entail? Pretty much blasting my Bluetooth speaker to worship music while I am in the shower and singing loudly and off key (p.s. I only do this in my own home 🤣🤣)You are probably laughing at this point, but I find it so liberating that I don’t really care. I carry a lot of burdens and worries on my shoulders from work each day and so it is important that I wipe my slate clean and this truly helps me do that. I even have a playlist going.

Read: I try and read something purposeful each night. Sometimes it is reading someone else’s blog about faith, sometimes it is a specific passage from my bible, and sometimes I just open my bible and start reading. I usually try to make it relatable to either struggles I am facing or something that I think will help me further this journey.

Reach: Finally, I reach to God and I pray. I pray about my patients at work, for my friends and family, for guidance with my journey, and many other things. I historically have not been the best “pray-er” and so I have been really trying to be better about this and at least pray every night. If I’m being honest, something I really struggle with is praying aloud in groups. You know when you hear someone else pray and you think “Wow, that was a really good prayer and it was worded so eloquently.” Yeah…I never think that when I pray aloud and I’m always so worried about what other people are thinking that I am afraid to pray out loud in front of others…again, I am not perfect.

I am a work in progress, and this is my journey. But by being more intentional with my faith in my daily life, I think I will be able to climb to much greater heights.