A few months back, God took me down a road of discovering what it truly means to live intentionally. Before this journey, my view of the concept was little more than packing your life full to the brim and doing your best to climb to the top. However, as I leaned in a little closer and took a longer look at the life of my Savior, I realized that my view of how to live intentionally was in desperate need of a change.
You see, I’d gotten myself so caught up in building. I wanted to do great things for the Kingdom. I wanted to make an impact and change the world. Naturally, in my mind that meant I’d better skip the small and go for the big. After all, isn’t that the only way to accomplish anything?
And yet, this is far from what I saw reflected in the life that my Jesus lived. He spoke words such as, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39). Then in Mark 10 He says, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many” (verse 45).
It would appear that Christ didn’t come to this world to build up an earthly kingdom. Instead Christ came to simply give. He gave every last bit of who He was. Based upon the beautiful life of Christ, we can each gather for ourselves that real living is found in giving away every piece of ourselves.
We can try to build, and we can seek after making much of our earthly kingdoms. Yet how full will our lives really be once every bit of what is earthly has been drained away from them?
Intentional living isn’t a pursuit of making much of our lives but rather of giving away our lives. The most beautiful part of this intentional way of living is that it’s ready and open for every single one of us.
We may not hold on to a lot right now. Maybe our mission field feels a little small, or our abilities not near enough, but every single one of us has more than enough to give.
We possess within ourselves the very life of Jesus Christ, the One who aches to rescue and redeem every lost and wandering soul. This, friends, is something worth giving.
When we surrender our whole selves to a faithful God and allow Him to break us into a thousand scattered pieces, suddenly the life of Christ is spread farther than our whole selves could ever go.
Letting ourselves be given will lead us to find that every heart changed, each life transformed, and every drop of His soul-transforming love invested gives back a million times more than our greatest efforts of building a life.
I’ve spent plenty of time chasing after the grand and the glorious. But what if doing the grand and the glorious is really just a combination of ordinary days lived extraordinarily?
Perhaps extraordinary gospel truths lived out in ordinary, everyday lives could bring the beauty of Christ into the midst of each of our own corners of life. It would seem that Christ’s life was enough to demonstrate that living fully given right where you are will bring about the greatest impact.
Christ’s entire time on this earth was one grand display of living in a given way. The entire motive behind His earthly life was to give Himself to the work of His Father. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38). He spent each day with those who were in a desperate state of need. He gave from a place of continuous supply, abiding in the Faithful One who will never let any one of us run dry.
So how do we walk in this given way every day? How do we take the very ways of Christ and usher them into our ordinary lives? It all starts with being willing to live right where He’s placed us.
Someday He might very well call us to live in the jungles of another foreign land, but today He might be calling us to reach those who live right outside of our front door.
Someday He might call us to share on a stage before the masses, but today He might ask of you your diligence to be faithful with one little child’s heart.
Your ability to reach another human heart is not dependent on where you are placed or what your surroundings might be. Your ability to share extraordinary gospel truths depends only upon your willingness to let the work of Christ be channeled through you.
Start your every day with the emptying of your own ways and the accepting of His. Start every day with letting go of your tasks and welcoming in His purposes for you today.
The truth of the matter is that there is no task that is too low for the life of a believer. Our Savior is searching the earth for those who will be faithful and willing, not for those who think that the power to change the world lies within themselves.
You and I will make the very greatest impact when we give every part of ourselves to the Master and let Him take us to those spaces where He can use us best.
