{"id":987,"date":"2009-11-16T12:36:44","date_gmt":"2009-11-16T12:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2009\/11\/still_thinking_about_but_not_living_intentionally.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:44:40","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:44:40","slug":"still_thinking_about_but_not_living_intentionally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2009\/11\/still_thinking_about_but_not_living_intentionally.shtml","title":{"rendered":"(Still Thinking About But Not) Living Intentionally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well over a year ago, I wrote this post<\/a> about living intentionally. In other words, deciding my path, doing what I know I should or what I believe to be best based on what God has shown me in the Bible rather than just going with the flow of life, wherever it may take me. Back in May of 2008 i wrote:<\/p>\n

I sit down at my laptop every night and most days (like now) at lunch, but mostly I browse around the web looking at stuff. Some good stuff, like Codepoke’s blog or Jared’s blog (two you ought to read), but sometimes it’s just time killers. The online equivalent of reruns of M*A*S*H, something you do to have something to do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Painfully, this is exactly where I find myself today. More and more distracted by the fluff of life, sitting on my bum watching re-runs of M*A*S*H, figuratively. Almost a year and a half later, and nothing has changed.
\nOuch.
\nToday, however, I a this post from the Desiring God blog that opened my eyes. It was titled When You Don’t Want to Do What You Ought To<\/a><\/em> and was an eye opener. In it, John Piper lists 5 ways of dealing with exactly what I’ve been feeling.
\nChoices 1-2 are basically ignoring the problem or fooling yourself into thinking that what you want and what you ought are one in the same. Options 3-4 are where many religious people live, gutting it out, doing what you ought even though you don’t feel like it and maybe feeling guilty about not wanting to.
\nI’ve realized that I’ve been living in Option 1 (denial) while trying or hoping to get to option 3 (just doing it).
\nOption 5, however, is where I need to be:<\/p>\n

You can seek, by grace, to have God give the “want to” so that when the time comes to do the “ought to,” you will “want to.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, cry out to God to change my heart and make my desires line up with the good I ought to do.
\nMy prayer life hasn’t been what it should be, shoot it’s been practically non existent. But my mental focus hasn’t been on reconnecting with God so that he might refresh me and renew in me the desires of His<\/em> heart. Instead, I’ve been spending my mental energy trying to figure out how I can make room in my schedule, remove Twitter followers, readjust the feeds I subscribe to, change my viewing habits, rearrange my schedule or whatever so that I’ll be able to get myself to do the good things I ought. Instead, I should be on my knees, asking to be made ready to act. Not just in ability but, more importantly, in heart and desire.
\nit’s a fools errand, trying to change myself. I’m far too broken, far to limited in my intellect and far too weak to do so. All along, he stands at the ready to give me what my heart desires. All I have to do is ask.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well over a year ago, I wrote this post about living intentionally. In other words, deciding my path, doing what I know I should or what I believe to beRead More (Still Thinking About But Not) Living Intentionally<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n(Still Thinking About But Not) Living Intentionally - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2009\/11\/still_thinking_about_but_not_living_intentionally.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"(Still Thinking About But Not) Living Intentionally - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Well over a year ago, I wrote this post about living intentionally. 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There's a bunch of stuff in there that I intend to chew on - later. I haven't posted much lately. Frankly, posting here has been sporadic at best for a long time. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":760,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2008\/01\/i_think_i_need.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":987,"position":1},"title":"I Think I Need a Break","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"January 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm coming to a conclusion that I've been trying to avoid for a long time. Avoid it while, ironically, implementing it by failing to post anything of substance. I need to take a break, of sorts, from blogging. 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I can't explain it, it just\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Salguod.net stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Salguod.net stuff","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/salguod-net-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":242,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/01\/im_still_here_1.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":987,"position":4},"title":"I’m Still Here …","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"January 3, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Just wanted to let you know that I am still around, despite the lack of substantive posts for about 3 1\/2 weeks. The holidays were a particularly busy time, as usual, so I never got in any time to even post our holiday letter or even a note to say\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Salguod.net stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Salguod.net stuff","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/salguod-net-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":744,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/11\/i_think_im_read.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":987,"position":5},"title":"I think I’m Ready","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"November 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I think I'm ready to get back to blogging. Maybe. I know, technically I never stopped, but posts about suicidal squirrels isn't exactly why I started this thing. Back when I started, there was a lot of stuff on my mind and I wanted a place to explore it and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Salguod.net stuff"","block_context":{"text":"Salguod.net stuff","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/salguod-net-stuff"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1299,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions\/1299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}