Intentionality

Suppose we are interested in learning a new language. My son took an interest in Russian a few years back. Because of my interest in French literature I took an interest in learning French. One thing you quickly learn with languages like French or Russian, and I suspect Chinese or Navaho, is that you do not just "pick it up." One must make a deliberate decision and make a commitment to the task. You decide, "Yes, I will take whatever steps are necessary to achieve this goal."

In its essence, achieving a goal like this requires (a) the decision to do so, (b) finding a mentor who can help us move out of square one into complete facility, and (c) following through on each step along the way.

Dallas Willard, in his book Renovation of the Heart, uses this process of learning a language as a metaphor for character development. It requires intentionality first. Do we want to become better people? It does not "just happen."

Life is an ocean. If you are a ship in London and want to reach New York, it will be a very long time before you reach this destination if you set about to just drift there, if you reach it at all. Tragically, too many people live their lives with no aim whatsoever. Or with very low aims.

Where are you going with your life? What kind of goals do you have for your own personal development? As Ralph Winter once said, "Risks are not to be evaluated in terms of the probability of success, but in terms of the value of the goal." Keep pressing on. Purposefully.