My New Theme for 2014
Every year I prayerfully choose a word or phrase that I believe God wants for my life over the next 12 months. Last year it was transformational. This year my theme word will be “intentional.”
Intentional. Done on purpose. Deliberate. Planned. Intended. Meant. Studied. Knowing. Premeditated. Having to do with intention.
This year I want to be, do, live, think, relate, love and live intentional. I want to be intentional in relationships. My marriage. With my children. In my home. In my walk with the Lord. In ministry. In my commitments. In my physical health. In everything. No excuses.
Each year the Lord does a work in my life for good. I have learned that whatever my word or phrase is, God is going to develop and mold me.
As I was praying over this word today the Lord brought something to my mind he wanted me to detach myself from. Something that I enjoy. Facebook. Actually he began to tell me this a week ago but today it was like “DO IT.”
Facebook in and of itself is not a bad thing. If can be a great thing. I enjoy keeping up with people I care about. I enjoy connecting with people from my past. Both Todd and I love seeing photos of children we know. However sometimes Facebook can be the opposite of intentional. Too often I see Facebook as the opposite of being real. A person dislikes something one has done and instead of being intentional and talking to the person, they post something in hopes someone may see it and understand the indirect message. A photo will disturb someone and again we don’t say anything we just post something about it to another person. Have you even known about a husband and wife having serious conflict, maybe even adultery, physical abuse, drug or porn addiction involved but on FB they communicate to each other as if their marriage is something else? I don’t believe for a minute we should air out our dirty laundry about anyone, especially family or close friends on social media. Nor do I believe one should lash out at another on social media. There is no value in that. At the same time when we use it as a platform to put up a façade that to me seems the opposite of being intentional about being real. We live in a culture that is so full of pretense and FB seems to feed this. For many Facebook is feeding a dysfunction and unhealthiness that is in desperate need of healing. So today I turned off my personal Facebook account.
This is the first thing God put on my heart about being intentional. I expect there will be other changes He wants me to make in the next 12 months. I don’t know how long I will be off FB. It could be several weeks, months, a year or even forever. I take my cue from Him.