Discover the Power of Good Intentions

Since becoming a certified financial coach, I have now listened to upwards of 600 hours of Ramsey and Jesse Mecham financial podcasts. Since you may think that’s nuts and don’t want to do the same, let me deliver to you the one word that I have heard the most: intentionality. Dave Ramsey would say that if you want to win with money, you have to be intentional. I want to bring that word and overlay it onto all of homemaking. If you want to win in homemaking, and that includes how you manage your money, you have to be intentional.

But have you noticed that “good intentions” is usually negative? It’s often a way of saying you meant to do something (how nice) but never actually did it. It’s the stuff that failed new year’s resolutions are made of. You had every intention to faithfully exercise this year, but it’s nearing the end of January and you’ve only exercised three days so far. 

Intentions are when you want to do something and plan to do it. For the wise person, the desire is to do what is right and good and the wise person plans accordingly. The fool, on the other hand, wants to and plans to do bad things. More often than that, he just doesn’t plan at all. He rolls over and hits snooze when he should be getting up and working toward something good. 

Last Monday, I knew Matt would be watching the Monday night football game, which is my definition of boring. My intention was to get on the rowing machine after dinner, while he was watching the game. That afternoon I asked him to look at me after dinner and say, “Have fun on the rowing machine!” because I often have fantastic intentions earlier in the day about how I’m going to get something done in the evening, but I talk myself out of it when my energy runs low after dinner. Wanting and planning to do exercise very easily sputters and dies. 

A quality I long to develop in myself is congruency. I want my plans to match my actions. In Isaiah 14:24 we hear the LORD say, “As I have planned, so shall it be.” God models congruency for us, and I want to be that kind of wife and mom and housekeeper and money manager and cook and employee. If I plan to do something, with God’s help so shall it be. As a weak human, my intentions can often be carelessly spoken or too grandiose to be realistic. Follow through on plans does not come naturally. I have to practice and work and pray if I want to add the quality of congruency to my character.  

One intention I had a couple of years ago was to purge our pantry of highly processed foods, but that meant replacing each processed food with something homemade, which was a massive undertaking to learn to make something new and also carve out the routine to make it on a regular basis. So I made a plan to look at one highly processed item in the pantry, give thought to what nutritional food would need to replace it, learn the recipe, and get used to making it for weeks. I did that, and when I deemed that I had successfully made the more nutritional food a natural part of my routine, then I walked into the pantry and chose one more item that I intentionally would replace with better ingredients assembled in my own kitchen. Because of my intentionality, the pantry I have now is not the same pantry I had two years ago.

We know ourselves. I know when my intentions are glib, having only “superficial plausibility,” as the dictionary puts it, and that I’ll be too lazy to carry them out, with failure imminent from the start. And I know when my intentions are excellent and serious and that I will see them through to completion, with a solid sense of hope and confidence right out of the gate. Foolishness versus wisdom. Often that place where we feel like a failure as a homemaker can be traced back to a lack of intentionality. We have wished many a thing but never with congruency of action to words. There is no forward progress when our intentions are superficial. 

I did get on the rowing machine that Monday night, because I brought my husband in on my plan, to help me do what I said I wanted to do. I hacked my own propensity to avoid exercising in the evening. I planned to row for 20 minutes, and I did. This is the kind of intentional person I hope to be. 

Are you a person of many words but little action, and you feel discouraged because you’re not getting where you want to be? Abide in Christ as your strength and ask him to help you build congruency between your intentions and doing what you intend. Practice. The next time you wish something were true in your home, take time to develop a reasonable plan to get there and then sit back and really decide if you’re going to carry out what you intend. Will you do it or are you just fooling yourself?