Last week I shared one of the big lessons God is showing me on my quest to live this year with intention. The reminder that my past doesn’t define me has been such a gentle word of grace at the start of a new year.

But there is another important truth I’m finding as I continue to ask the Lord what it means to live with intention: I have to live on purpose.

When Casiday was little, she often said she’d done things on accident. But after more inquiry, we sometimes discovered her choices weren’t mere happenstance – they were decisions she’d made on purpose.

If we’re honest, as adults, we can fail to live on purpose in many areas of our lives. The stress, chaos, noise and exhaustion of modern life can leave us void of the desire and discipline to live with and on purpose.

But if 2018 is going to be a year of intentional living for me, more of my life needs to be on purpose.

As with letting go of the past, there are a few verses I’ve found to help guide me in this area:

“Pay careful attention, then, to how you live – not as unwise people but as wise – making the most of time because the days are evil.” —Ephesians 5:15-16

“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.” —1 Corinthians 10:31

I’m reading Paul David Tripp’s devotional, “New Morning Mercies,” this year as part of my quiet time. One of the day’s reading included this sentence: “The Bible is a big-picture book that calls us to live big-picture lives.”

Can I just tell you that there are a lot of days when I struggle to see the big picture in my life? I get so distracted by the minutiae and the mundane that I miss the miraculous. I forget there is always an eternal view.

One of my big desires for 2018 is to learn to keep my eyes on eternity, to be intentional in seeing the ways God is at work in, through and around me. I want to shift my focus from me to Him, to see the way He sees, to love the way He loves – to keep my eyes on the prize of knowing and abiding in Christ (Philippians 3:14, John 15:1-5).

For me, that means an intentional choice to view my to do list as opportunities to serve others, to worship Him and to share the Gospel.

When I write, I have the honor of speaking hope and truth to those who may need to be reminded there is a God who loves them and pursues them. When I clean my house, it is a chance to serve my family but also an invitation to ask God to clean my own heart.

How I spend my days reflects what I value. I want to look back on 2018 and see that I valued the people in my life and that I chose to live with gusto and grace in 2018.