The 3 Most Important Questions To Answer If You Want To Live Intentionally

Have you been fumbling through life lately, trying to make sense and meaning of it? These three questions will challenge you to the core and get you on track!

I finally figured it out! The secret to living and enjoying a meaningful, purposeful, and rewarding life on this earth. It goes without saying that the source of all meaning, purpose, and reward is our great God and King! He is the giver and sustainer of life and the one who pours out any and all blessing and providence. So my newfound discovery is based on the foundation of His rock solid Word, love, and truth! 

My epiphany is this:

Life needs to be lived intentionally! 

Living intentionally means planning, being disciplined, and wholeheartedly participating in the relationships, activities, habits, and responsibilities that God has placed in your life. It’s an incredible way to live! It’s the abundant life! 

What’s your alternative? Take a look at the antonyms (opposites) of being intentional:

Who wants to live like that? 

Living this kind of life screams chaos, laziness, idleness, clutter and disorder. 

In other words, in my opinion, the opposite of living an intentional life – is just drifting.

These are your two choices, my friend. There really isn’t any middle ground between living intentionally and drifting. 

The one leads you to accomplishing the will of God, the other leads to powerlessly reacting to whatever comes your way. 

Which of these directions do you want your life to take? 

If you could be a fly on the wall at your own funeral, as which would you want those present to describe you? 

“She lived life so intentionally! She was disciplined and focused on everything she did. She truly fulfilled Colossians 3:23 “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men.” She gave it her all, and devoted herself to all that God planned for her to do. What an inspiration she was!”

OR

“She was sweet but she kind of just drifted through life. She didn’t really hone in on anything she did, but at least she didn’t do any harm. She always seemed surrounded by chaos and disorganization but it didn’t seem to affect her too much. We loved her anyway. 

What a difference, would you agree?

Following are the 3 most important questions to answer if you want to live intentionally: 

Am I distracted?

Everyone you’ve heard of in history who has invented something we use worldwide, or has developed anything worth mentioning, has something in common. They all did “Deep Work.”

Deep Work is the practice of distraction-free productivity.

Cal newport

It is working on something for hours, days, or weeks, without getting distracted. Intently focusing on it and delving deeply into the heart of it.     

As busy wives, mothers, and homemakers, we may not have the luxury of investing uninterrupted hours, or even minutes, into a particular task or project, but we can at least eliminate as many distractions as we are able to. In this day and age it is easier than ever before to get distracted. You can be writing an important email, while your phone pings with texts and messages which lure you away several times within five minutes. You can be cooking a delicious dinner, but get to scrolling on Facebook and the onions burn. The possibilities for divergences and interruptions are endless. 

It would be helpful to disable as many notifications as you can. Or better yet mute your phone altogether. Close your tabs to avoid being lured by other sites. Tell people in your life that you’re going to be focusing on a particular project for a week or two and won’t be able to be in touch. 

Make every effort to do intentional work by eradicating unnecessary distractions. 

Anything worth doing, takes focus. 

Am I disciplined?

I heard a definition of the word ‘discipline’ years ago that I’ve never forgotten, and that has helped me tremendously in life. 

Discipline is deciding to do something beforehand, and then doing it!

So many of us make decisions to improve our lives, or New Year Resolutions to whip ourselves back on track. But deciding to do those is useless without the latter mandate; which is to persistently, consistently, and faithfully carry out what we’ve decided to do. 

Being disciplined is one of the greatest key factors in living an intentional life. 

Paul even wrote:

Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.

1 Timothy 4:7

What I’ve discovered is that one of the ways that we were designed by God as humans is that the more we do something, the more we want to do it. The more you exercise, the more you want to be fit and exercise. The more efficient you are, the more you want to find other efficient ways to do other tasks. The more respectful you are to your husband, the more you notice things that he does that are worthy of your respect, and the more you respect him.

This principle is true for negative aspects of life as well. The more junk food you eat, the more you crave junk food. The more you skip church on Sundays, the more you want to do other things and skip church again and again. And so on.

It seems as though it’s a principle that is quite ingrained into us. 

Well, the more you become disciplined in one area, after another area – the more you will desire to be more disciplined. And this makes for a very intentionally lived life! 

Anything worth doing, takes discipline. 

Am I Forward Thinking?

There’s a wonderful word in the Bible – Prudent. Being prudent in simple terms means thinking ahead wisely, thoughtfully, carefully. It involves planning, aiming for a specific goal, action, or event and being ambitious in reaching it. 

Once again, perhaps the antonym of prudent will be helpful in understanding what being prudent is:

Who wants to live like that?

In order to live an intentional life, you will need to be prudent. Get great at setting goals, at implementing systems that will help you to be more productive, at discovering means of reaching the place that God has ordained for you to be. 

Think of parenting, for example. You can parent by getting through each day, reacting to whatever your children throw at you (hopefully not literally :)). Or you could be prudent and plan towards the character traits that you would like your children to display, and work tirelessly towards forming those virtues in them. 

You can eat whatever you spontaneously felt like buying at the supermarket last week, drink what you were never allowed to drink as a child, and be a couch potato to reward yourself for waking up yet another day. Or you could be prudent and set your goal weight, and plan a course of action in how to eat, exercise, and work towards achieving and sustaining your ideal weight. 

In order to live an intentional life, you have to be prudent. As the old adage goes, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll be sure to hit it.” 

The wisdom of the prudent is to discern his way, but the folly of fools is deceiving.

Proverbs 14:8

Anything worth doing, takes prudence. 

So, what are the the three most important questions to answer if you want to live intentionally?

Am I distracted? Anything worth doing, takes focus.

Am I disciplined? Anything worth doing, takes discipline. 

Am I prudent? Anything worth doing, takes prudence. 

If you line those ducks up in a row, my friend, you will most certainly be living intentionally.

I would suggest that you choose just one area in your life in which to start being intentional. Just one! I guarantee that if you are disciplined in that one area for a period of time, it will create within you the desire to be disciplined in other areas of your life. Choose one area of your life at a time. 

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. 

Ephesians 2:10