If breathing is the foundational practice of embodiment, intent is the fuel that carries you towards the New Earth. You cannot make positive changes to your emotional landscape without intending to do so.
In Leviticus 19:12 God says, “Do not misuse my name by making promises you don’t intend to keep.” You have been warned: intent is serious stuff.
The journey of conscious embodiment is very much like a stock market graph. Every time we have a breakthrough, we go through what feels like a regression as we reconcile and release whatever we’ve just cleared. Little climbs lead to sharp drops and gradual recoveries, with the overall trajectory taking you ever higher.
In those many drops we can lose pretty much anything—awareness, direction, motive power, desire. That’s because emotional development observes the basic principle that the old must make way for the new. Just as you must demolish an old house before you can build a new one in its place, you must demolish your old emotional structures before building newer, healthier ones.
There is, however, a significant difference. When building a new house you have an architect’s plan. With your emotions you have no such plan. You just want a shiny ‘new you’—yet you also fear letting go of the ‘current you’ because you want to know, ahead of time, what the new you will be like.
How do you choose the right path if you don’t know—and have no way of knowing—where you’re going?
The answer is intent.
Crack cocaine
Genesis 41:28 reads: “It is just as I said—God has shown what he intends to do.” If intent is part of God’s toolkit, it needs to be part of ours.
Intent is pure desire for the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s the crack cocaine of conscious progress. It’s a quiet fire in your heart that tells God: “I’m done with this. I will do whatever it takes to get out of here.”
Intent is pure desire for the Kingdom of Heaven. It’s the crack cocaine of conscious progress. It’s a quiet fire in your heart that tells God: “I’m done with this.”
The great thing about intent is that you don’t need to know where you’re going. Just just need to know that you want to go. That desire—that flame—is enough. If you can fuel that, God will do the rest.
Genuine intent
But only if your intent is genuine.
You can’t fake intent.
Moses warns us about faking intent in Exodus 8:29: “Your Majesty,” Moses replied, “I’ll pray for you as soon as I leave, and by tomorrow the flies will stop bothering you, your officials, and the citizens of your country. Only make sure that you’re telling the truth this time and that you really intend to let our people offer sacrifices to the Lord.”
When your intent is genuine, God will show you your next step. Not the step after that, or five steps in the future, or your end goal. The very next step… the tiniest forward movement along your journey. It’s all you are capable of perceiving right now. No matter how small that step seems your journey cannot be completed without it.
Quiet pull
The next step could be anything. It might be an urge to call someone you owe an apology to. It might be a quiet pull to read a book or a blog. A phone call, an invitation, even a physical or emotional collision that triggers a release of stuck energy.
Whatever that step is… it’s exactly what you need, though you’ll only realise this with hindsight.
With time and awareness you’ll learn to sense these steps in real time, as they happen—almost. They have an odd, unavoidable, slightly surreal quality—as if the force of gravity was running on steroids.
You can take that next step later, or you can take it now. God is playing a long game and will respect your decision with infinite patience.
So take it.
Now.
It will take you wherever you, uniquely, need to go.
Photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash
