How to be Intentional With God: The Busy Woman’s Guide
A Guest post from Kaitlyn Fiedler
How can we be intentional with God in an age of busyness? Life is demanding. Especially as a wife or momma, right? Every day, we are pulled in a million different directions.
House needs tending, food needs cooking, babies need holding, and clothes need folding. There are groceries to buy, there are weeds to pick, and there is mail to sort. Maybe a friend needs a visit, or parents need caring for. All this and so much more take up our days as women. And this doesn’t even cover the added time spent working a job either inside or outside the home.
So, in all this, how can we, as busy women, be intentional with God to open our hearts and minds to the Father? How do we hear his voice among the noise? How do we prioritize time with him, when daily tasks close in on us from the time our eyes open in the mornings?
Three Ways to be Intentional with God
Three practical ways come to mind:
Don’t wait for everything to be ‘just so.’
If we wait for everything to be ‘just so’ before we commit to spending time with God, we may never get around to doing it. I used to think that time with God had to look the exact same every single day: a big comfy chair with a nice soft blanket, a coffee in hand, soft music playing, and no interruptions- haha! If I couldn’t find that time in my schedule every day, I just wouldn’t spend any time with God. This is such a lie that is so easy to believe as women!
We see all the Instagram pictures of women having their quiet time every day in the most beautifully decorated spaces with the prettiest mug in hand and zero disruptions.
But if we want to get real, who actually has that kind of quiet time? I don’t know about you, but for me, many days, it doesn’t happen until after my little one goes down for their morning nap. After we’ve spent about an hour playing and feeding, he finally falls asleep and I get to finally sit down, ready for another nap myself.
Instead, I pour some coffee and rub my eyes, forcing myself to stay awake while I sit with hair a mess in a room filled with baby toys. If I’m lucky to read a couple of chapters straight through with no disturbances, it typically takes about 15 minutes, but most of the time it ends up taking about an hour due to interruptions from my little one waking up or my husband (working from home) having a question or wanting to talk about something.
So, to sum it up, everything will NEVER be ‘just so,’ but we’ve got to be disciplined in getting that time and making it work in our day, even if it’s not picture-perfect.
God is always with us, so we can be always with him.
Never stop praying (1 Thessalonians 5:17) and meditate on God’s word day and night (Psalm 1:2).
These verses teach us to constantly be in communication with God all throughout our day. God is always available to be reached. We are never without him. He is with us and desiring to be our helper at all times.
Yes, there is a time for distancing ourselves (like Jesus did in Mark 1:35) in order to have uninterrupted quiet time talking with our Lord. But when we can’t do that, we are invited to talk to him and be with him at any point in our day, wherever we are.
Find God in every little thing.
The Lord never abandons us. He never leaves us to walk this life alone. He is everywhere, if we just look.
He can be found in the quiet of the night as we close our eyes and close out our thoughts, thanking him for every good thing He brought that day. God can be found in the early morning rise, as we ask him to guide us and show us his presence that day.
He can be found around the breakfast table with our family, as we thank him for his provision. God can be found in the car ride to school, as we love on our kiddos before sending them out for the day.
He can be found in the breeze on an afternoon walk… in the sunshine… in the rainfall. For He is the great Artist of creation. He can even be found in the messy and long afternoons as we work hard to take care of our home and our families.
Choose to be intentional with God
By the end of the day, we are weary, yet we have the opportunity to thank God for another day He’s given us. As we lay our heads down, we ask him for the strength to face another day and for his eyes (Matthew 13:16) to see him in every little thing.
Kaitlyn Fiedler lives near Greenville, SC with her husband and baby boy. She spends her days studying for her seminary classes and simply enjoying her days being a wife, a biological mom, and a new foster mom. She writes regularly about faith and womanhood on her blog: abeautifulbelonging.com. You can also find her on Instagram @kaitlyn_fiedler.
Thank you so much to Kaitlyn for joining us today at Joy Let Loose! I love your perspective and your encouragement to busy women, and the reminder to be intentional with God. There is such significance and beauty in cultivating our relationships with the Lord each day.