Hi friends,
I can’t believe Christmas was just yesterday! I hope you and your family had a beautiful time celebrating the birth of our dear Savior. We had a wonderful time! It’s also hard to believe that we are less than a week from 2019.
As we move into the New Year, I’m not so much about New Year resolutions as I am about intentional living. What is intentional living? Here’s my definition:
Intentional Living is living your life based on your values and beliefs. It is actively living for your priorities and cultivating the life that God calls you to.
How did I get started on this path towards intentional living? It all started with a wonderful book I listened to on audio called Cultivate: A Grace-Filled Guide to Growing an Intentional Life by Lara Casey. In Cultivate, Lara shares in a beautifully authentic voice her story of how she went from a dry desert place of a broken marriage and skewed priorities into a life of abundant, cultivated living.
Cultivated living means intentionally putting the people and things God has already blessed you with first and investing your time and attention on cherishing and growing these areas. Lara, after years of a black thumb much like me, learned how to grow beautiful plants and an abundant garden full of fresh fruits and veggies. She likens her tending of the garden to her tending of relationships for those dearest to her—God, her family, her friends and living out God’s call on her life.
Her storytelling is warm, witty and she makes you feel that she’s sitting down chatting with you over a cup of coffee. It was through reading this wonderful book that I began to assess how I was spending my time and what and who I was investing it in. Since then I’ve changed my focus to living for my priorities which are God, my family, friends, and writing for God.
Another I’ve found particular helpful in moving forward from a place of renewed purpose is the Faithful Living Planner which integrates God-focused days for the year.
You can find more information and a lovely walk-through video here:
What about you? Any New Year’s resolutions? Any planner or tools you’ve found helpful in living an intentional life and starting the year off from a place of purpose?
Happy New Year!
Blessings,
Dani
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“Cultivated living means intentionally putting the people and things God has already blessed you with first and investing your time and attention on cherishing and growing these areas” Amen! I love that goal!
Thanks so much, Becky! Hope you had a very Merry Christmas.