From Intention to Action: Living the Kingdom Vision

Dallas writes in his book still more than vision is required, and especially there is required intention. Projects of personal transformation rarely if ever succeed by accident, drift, or imposition, and that is because of the centrality of the will. The will can do very little; it's got a very small power, but what it can do is utterly indispensable and sacred, and no one can choose for you. [00:12:39]

In the outer world, we often stand back to look to see what will happen. Will rain ever come to California or not? Will COVID ever go away? Will the stock market go up? We wonder about causes that far transcend us. But in the inner world, in your little kingdom, it is far different. Here it is choice that matters, although fallenness and brokenness and sin and the evil one will try to keep us blind from this power. [00:23:04]

Now an intention is brought to completion only by a decision to fulfill or carry through with the intention. It is striking that we sometimes say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We never say it's paved with good decisions. There is a finality to decision that binds us. [00:36:21]

William Law, who was a great spiritual master for many, many centuries ago, wrote once, if you look to see why you're not as transformed as many of the early followers of Jesus were, you will discover it is not through ignorance or inability. You just simply never fully intended. [00:43:04]

Procrastination is a common and well-known way in which intention is aborted. Yes, but not today. You ever procrastinate? Would you like a little more time to think about it? A great baseball player a long time ago, Mickey Mantle, and when he died in his early 60s, it was a very tragic death. [00:48:56]

On the other hand, the profession or statement of intentions is a primary way of negotiating one ways through life, regardless of whether or not the intention professed is really there. And I know a lot about this. You could ask my wife Nancy when our three children were very small, all of them preschool age. [01:02:15]

If the genuine intention is there, the deed reliably follows, but if it is not there, the deed will most likely not be there either. So now I stand with you at the crossroads. You know of the vision that Jesus has set before that is unincomparable as an opportunity for human life. [01:11:44]

There is often a gap, Haze notes, between our professed intention and our actual behavior. The way to fill this gap is to choose to do things for no other reason than you said you would do them. At one time in human history, this was a common practice and was considered a kind of moral training. [01:21:28]

Examples might include getting up and going to bed in an early hour just because you said, forgoing favorite foods for a period of time just because you said, fasting just because you said, wearing an uncomfortable shirt they used to do this in the Middle Ages as a spiritual discipline just because you said. [01:29:32]

G.K. Chesterton, a great Christian thinker, once wrote a fabulous essay called In Defense of Rash Vows, and he noted that often in times when great ones follow Jesus, they love to make commitments that would bind themselves. In our day, very often we avoid doing that. We don't want to burn the ships. [01:35:16]

The man who makes a vow, Chesterton wrote, makes an appointment with himself at some distant time or place. This is who I will be. This is what I shall do. This is the vision I shall live. I close with this quote asking this question: Have you made the intention, the decision that you will have the life that Jesus offers whatever it takes? [01:44:14]

There are thrilling moments doubtless for the spectators and the dabblers and the uncommitted among us, but there is one thrill that is known only to the soldier who fights for his own flag, the artist who starves himself for his own illumination, the lover who finally makes his own choice. [01:52:56]