Episode #62 Creating Systems for Success – Intentional Living

Hey friends. I might be a little bit too excited about today's episode because we're talking about creating systems for success. And if you know me in real life or you've been around, my content on social media or here on this podcast for any length of time, you know that I love a good plan and I love a good system. I might be nerding out a little bit as we talk about this topic today, and we're continuing in this series of intentional living and looking at how we can partner with God in our everyday lives.

This idea of systems for success so resonates with me. There's so many things I love about using systems to simplify our lives.

But we're not getting into all the nitty gritty of planning and organizers and spreadsheets and all of that fun today, although someday, I would love to talk with you about that, because I do speak Excel. But what we are talking about is bringing any of these broken systems or places of clutter or disorganization in our lives to God to ask for his direction.

This is one of those areas where I feel like sometimes, we remove God from the equation. We can look at meal planning or family schedules or planning trips or activities, or organizing our pantries or getting our to-do lists in order and see these needs as separate from God.

We can see these areas as just daily life that we get to manage on our own as we do what we need to do, and go where we need to go, and handle our business. The reality is, every aspect of our lives gets to be expressions of our faith. God doesn't tell us, "I care about this part of you, but not this part."

He says, "you are my kids. I want you to have life to the full in me. I want you to walk in relationship with me. I want to form your habits and I want to transform you into the likeness of my son." And so, everything we do gets to be done in partnership with God. It gets to be an overflow of our relationship with him. It gets to be an expression of our faith. And I love talking about that in this area of systems because our God is a God of order.

I'll read for us from 1 Corinthians 14 and it's talking about orderly worship. So there was some disorder that was happening in the worship setting, and they're receiving instruction to enter into times of worship in an orderly fashion. How each person can come with a hymn or a lesson or a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation, that all things would be done for building up.

But the verse I want to highlight for us is in verse 33 of 1 Corinthians 14. And this is the reason for orderly worship and it says,

"For God is not a God of confusion but of peace." (1 Corinthians 14:33)

And in some translations, that word confusion is disorder.

"For God is not a God of disorder, but of peace."

We see throughout the entirety of scripture that God is a God of order, he is a God of peace. We see how he brings things into order in the creation of the world, how he gives the sun and the moon to govern day and night, how he separates the land from the water.

We see how God is the God of order, in how he made us as humans, the inner workings of all of our organs, and how our bodies develop in our mother's wombs and how we grow as time passes.

We see his order even in himself in the Trinity. The father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that there is order not chaos in their relationship. This is our good Father, our God of order.

We can come to him even in the things that might feel not as spiritual or less significant in our days and say, "Hey, God, you are innately wonderful at this. Can you help me in this area?"

So, our conversation starters today come in two parts. The first one is we want to take a minute and recognize and celebrate the things that are going well. Chances are there's things that are going well when it comes to your systems, and sometimes we can just overlook them because the things that aren't working so well draw our attention.

And then next we want to ask God to speak into areas where things might be a little less peaceful or a little bit more chaotic and follow what he would tell us to do.

So, our first question:

God, will you help me see some of the ways that my current systems and routines are working well?

And next, think about one of those areas that isn't going so great, and then talk with God about it.

God, this is where I'm struggling. What would help me out?

Maybe he'll bring a friend to mind, someone you can go and talk to and learn from. Maybe he'll bring a resource, or he'll remind you of something that you tried before but couldn't really stick with long term.

Maybe God wants to bring fresh revelation or even permission and grace to not put so much pressure on yourself in that area. Don't put an expectation on him or answer the questions for God. Think through things, acknowledge what you see and what you understand, and bring these questions to God to hear what he would say to you.

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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