Geneva's Blog

Good evening, practical and productive Readers,

The last three posts have been (at least they were supposed to be) thought-provoking, meant to make us re-evaluate our lives, purposes, and motivations. Big concepts and important topics. Today I want to shift from the realm of thoughts and ideas into action. Don’t be scared, get excited!

In Post One, we talked about the importance of finding and following our purpose. We continued this in the following posts by discussing how our passions can point us toward our purpose and what potential we each possess to do something about it. It may seem that so far these discussions have been focused on large areas of life like career decisions or big projects of some sort. However, why should these concepts be limited to the larger aspects of life? I want to show you that they should apply to all parts of life, from the major decisions to the minutiae of our everyday routines. If you’re like me, this is such a relief! Something I can do right here, right now? Yes, please! Sign me up!

I don’t think that God’s will applies to the broad strokes of life, but then we’re on our own for the little stuff. In Colossians 1:16-17, Paul says “…all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Luke 16:10 says “If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.” Don’t let me get overdramatic here, but those verses tell me something exciting. Ready for it?

Everything matters.

Not just to me, but to God. His will applies to everything. He cares about the choices you make, how you spend your time and money, what you eat, what you say, what your afterwork and bedtime routines look like. I have several examples in mind that I am going to cover, but you will probably have even more, so please add your own below in the comments!

Okay, here we go:

Finances – Wow, that’s NONE of your business, Geneva. Why don’t you go write about something you’re qualified for? Fair. But take a deep breath, I’m not about to give you retirement advice (well, not in this post anyway). What I do want is to say that our money decisions should align with our purposes/Assignments. I don’t know what that looks like for you, and this may differ on an individual basis. Personally, Alex and I decided that going into debt did not align with our Assignments, so we have spent the last year working to pay off our debts, all the way down to the “extra” $20 bill on our phone plans for each of our phones. We also analyzed our spending and decided that spending money on DoorDash was not the most effective financial option to serve our Assignment. Please don’t misread me. I am NOT suggesting food delivery is evil! Only that we should be making purposeful, strategic decisions about how we spend our money.

Health and fitness – this is an area I care a lot about. It is easy to be overly opinionated about the “right” way to be healthy but rest assured – I am not here to give prescriptive advice. Unless you ask me to. Just kidding. Focus, Geneva. Back to the actual point, this is definitely an area that most of the western civilization does not do well with. We are told in 1 Corinthians 6:19 to respect our bodies. Our bodies are temples for the Holy Spirit, we are to honor God with our bodies, our bodies are not our own. I think we can say with certainty that God’s will extends to how we treat our bodies. This means that every time we sit down to eat, we have the opportunity to align ourselves with God’s will for our lives. We could easily have a whole post dedicated to this topic alone, but hopefully you get the idea.

Friendships – are we utilizing our relationships well for mutual growth and support? Are we being intentional with our friends? Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Meaning that friends should challenge and support each other in our growth. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other up”. Life is difficult. There is strength in community that we should be investing in. That’s why I ask if we are being intentional with our friends. Are we challenging and supporting each other and building the communities that we all need?

Bible study and prayer – I probably don’t have to say much to convince anyone that God’s will is for us to know his word and pray to him. He says that pretty clearly in many places throughout the Bible. Are we making this the priority it should be? Do we have a designated time/space for this to happen? This one is the key to aligning everything else in your life with your Assignment. Without aligning yourself with God through prayer and learning his truth, you don’t have much hope of making good decisions in other areas of your life.

Time/Schedule – This is another area I get excited about. Time is a finite resource that we often spend as if it were infinite. Exactly like we want to spend our money to reflect our values and purposes, we should want to do the same with our time. Imagine you were to track and log your time for a week, and then tally your hours under categories like housework, entertainment, prayer, work, exercise, social media, or spending intentional time with spouse. Do you think the total hours you spend in each category would align perfectly with your purpose in life? Or could your time expenditures use some tweaking? I know mine could!

This may not mean a complete schedule overhaul. It might mean looking for “wasted” time and finding ways to utilize it better. For example, my commute to work is an hour (as long as traffic is good). On my drive to work, I have claimed this hour as my daily prayer time. It’s actually pretty ideal. It’s the only time I’m truly by myself without much distraction. On the way home, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks that I wouldn’t otherwise have time for. Another tweak we made was when Alex and I were having trouble finding uninterrupted time to talk (you know, with the three kids always around asking incessant questions about everything). We discovered that getting up to have coffee and breakfast together at 4am is usually a guarantee of at least a few minutes of quiet time. It requires a shift to a slightly earlier bedtime, but getting to invest some time in each other has been well worth it. Your time budget may look different than mine, but I think you will be surprised at what you can change with some intentional planning.

If this feels like too much to address all at once, that’s okay. The good news: we’re very good at picking out areas that need improvement. Use that superpower and see if you can figure out where you have the biggest misalignments. Or ask your spouse or best friend. They will know. Start there and then keep going until you are actively seeking your Assignment in every area of your life. This post was not about thinking profound thoughts, it was a push to make some changes here and now.

Remember – everything matters. And that is exciting!

I only covered a few things here, so tell me YOUR thoughts. Where does this apply in everyday life for you? What changes are you making? Comment below!

As always, thanks so much for your time. Talk to you again soon!