to be unintentional

I have a thought.

I have had this thought peeking its head around corners for the last few months, reminding me of its existence, yet seeking deeper and deeper into vagueness as time went on.

The thought is this: to be unintentional*

Back in the day (about a year ago), being intentional was big in Church. Don't just let life float by you, waving at it as it passes by (thanks Johhny Depp**). Be intentional. Don't just want to read your Bible, read it. Don't just wish you'd pray more, do it. Get up at six in the morning, or at five in the afternoon, open your Bible, close your eyes, and get down to it.

Be intentional.

beintentionalbeintentionalbeintentionalbeintentionalbeintentional

My truly lovely small group leader had the words pray, love, something-else-that's-also-important, and be intentional on her pin-board. It is really cool, and really true, and she carries an authority that would be wasted without intention. Being intentional is a part of her.

And yet, true and right and very Christian as it is - being intentional - a voice in me said be unintentional.  

Be unintentional.

do you know what that means? To be intentional, as far as my little brain understood it, meant to do things that you intend to do, on purpose, with the result that those things you intended to do got done, with the result (since Church was saying it) that God's intentions were realised through our doings and becomings.

so to be unintentional? not quite the opposite. to my little heart (which sometimes strained [strains?] at the seams with intentionality and confusion about realising the Lord's intentions), to be unintentional meant to relax - to let the Lord realise his intentions without my efforts and anxiety, without me knowing what I'm doing, or trying so very hard to know and to do and to fit my puzzle piece at the right moment into the right pigeon hole so I can breathe a great deep sigh of relief that at least that was over, and hope I don't get any more assignments of the devil, to piously carry out with clenched teeth and deeply suppressed groans of frustration.

To be unintentional meant that I could sit down, take the squawking birds out my ears and my hair, and put down the suitcases I didn't know I was carrying and couldn't remember picking up in the first place, and to breath an actual cry of relief.

Sometimes repentance looks like giving up. Giving up the fight, giving up the effort, giving up the works.

And my hope was and is that when I miss it completely, and finally come to the end of my strength and admit defeat, declare that I surrender the war on me, and go take a nap, the Lord's intentions will be realised.

I have a testimony about that, which combines intentionality with unintentionality. One Sunday, on the way back from SOS, still in a bit of a daze, I walked by two ladies sitting on the sidewalk, and turned around to sit with them and talk with them and pray with them. They turned out to be Zimbabweans, new to the country. This was a non-anxiety laden encounter. I then breezily walked off, pushed myself into the nearest old-age home to ask someone (anyone!) if I could pray for them, who regarded me from above their glasses (which should have been horn-rimmed for literary effect) and begrudgingly allowed me to do so and dash out again in a flurry of righteous embarrassment. Having fled that scene, I found the ladies mentioned above in the street before the old age home, one of whom told me that her back pain too had fled the scene when I prayed for her, and where could they find my church.

So that's what I meant by unintentionality. I did not get a word of knowledge about backpain, I did not rebuke the backpain and command it to leave because I didn't know about rebuking things and I also didn't know about the backpain. I did not rummage up enough 'faith' to withstand the backpain because, as I said, I didn't know about the pain. And I didn't pray about it at all.

All I did was go with the feeling (a feeling external to myself) that I should return to them, and sat and prayed with them. And left. I think you could call it obedience. I guess that's what Sias meant when he said "God desires your obedience not your performance".