Intentional grounding

As a high school quarterback, I spent most of my time on offense running for my life. Defenses were in hot pursuit - all the time it seemed - rarely leaving me with any time to make the proper reads, to deliver the ball where I was supposed to, or to be any good at playing the position.

I found myself running for my life and/or throwing the ball away - something a quarterback is penalized 15 yards for - a penalty called intentional grounding.

All these years later, not much has changed, it seems. I find myself running around with my head cut off a lot of the time - often times it is doing Kingdom stuff, work and family activities - but I am running just the same.

Sometimes I just want to be able to stand tall in the pocket, have the protection I need to find the open man and deliver the ball on time. Does any of this make sense to you women reading this?

Much has been made in recent hours of being intentional. I have been hammered with this theme, in fact, and realize that I have been doing so much running and am so busy with "stuff"
that my time with Jesus and the Word of God hasn't been what I love it to be of late. The frantic pace (again much of it being good stuff) should have drawn a 15 yard penalty.

Wait - it did yesterday noon. Really it began Sunday afternoon at the conclusion of the fall Cursillo weekends, when this notion of being intentional was first thrust my way. It continued yesterday noon, when a phone conversation with my mother questioned where I have been, what I have been up to and if they (my parents) had done something to upset me.

FLAG!

This is one area where I could make a little priority shift. It was with remorse that I issued my apology and heard my mom tell me how they have been intentional with one another of late, taking time to eat together, hold hands and pray! That blew me away. I praise God for his movement in their lives.

In addition to that, I am looking for a little "divine intentional grounding", if you will. Not the kind that draws a flag - where there is a penalty - but rather a getting back to early mornings by the fire - reading and talking with Jesus the way we used to...the way I want to.

Ephesians 3: 14-19 from Eugene Peterson's translation of the Bible, The Message, reads this way: "My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God."

In another version of the Bible the phrase "with both feet planted firmly on love" is translated "being grounded." I want to be intentionally grounded in Christ - and that when I am He will reveal to me the breadth, length, depth and height of His love. It is when I am with Him, intimately and frequently in reading, thought and conversation that I am able to live a full life, full in the fullness of God.

This is being intentionally grounded, friends. This is when I am at my best. This is when we are as He intended us to be. This is when everything is the most clear - when before everything else - "I get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth."

Join me in prayer that this intentional grounding catches on and takes hold - that we might all be grounded, that we might all slow down and that we might all spend intimate time with Jesus each and every day!