For me, 2013 was an absolutely phenomenal year. I spent the first month on the other side of the planet experiencing life in a way that was completely new and fresh and beautiful. The people I met in Kenya showed me what it looks like to live genuinely, honestly, freely. When I came back home, I left my heart there in the orphanage with the children. My mind often wanders across the seas into the small town of Kaptagat. I hear the squealing and shouting from children chasing after us on the crimson clay roads. “Muzungu! Muzungu!” I see their beautiful feet skipping through thorn ridden fields.

“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

How beautiful are the feet of those who know true freedom.

I want to live life intentionally.

In this world of technology that we live in, I find myself constantly reaching for…something. Anything. Facebook. E-mail. The fun little Dot game on my phone that somehow distracts me for hours on end. And often at the end of the day, I collapse on my bed feeling disappointed and exhausted. I find myself frequently saying that I would love to do this or that, but “I just never have enough time”. Then I catch myself wasting time on things that are of such little consequence.

C.S Lewis wrote it perfectly in the Screwtape Letters. Writing from the perspective of the head demon to his nephew who is plotting to destroy the faith of a man, he writes:

“As this condition becomes more fully established, you will be gradually freed from the tiresome business of providing Pleasures as temptations…you will find that anything or nothing is sufficient to attract his wandering attention. You no longer need a good book, which he really likes, to keep him from his prayers or his work or his sleep; a column of advertisements in yesterday’s paper will do. You can make him waste his time not only in conversation he enjoys with people whom he likes, but in conversations with those he cares nothing about on subjects that bore him. You can make him do nothing at all for long periods… And Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man’s best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why…

It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing…Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

When we live life unintentionally, and allow ourselves to float from one thing to the next- we are edged away from the light and out into the nothing. And that is very scary indeed. I want to experience freedom from the empty distractions in my life, just like the people I met while I was in Kenya.

I’m not really one for New Year’s Resolutions. I think it’s silly to think that just because their is a delightful new calendar hanging on the wall, we’ll suddenly be empowered to change the crappy things about ourselves that we’ve been talking about for the last few months or years.

But I’ve had this idea in my head for about a month now, and it just makes sense for me to start today — New Years Day.

I want to start writing more. I think if I would spend more time getting my ideas down on paper (or…medium) then I would actually spend more time thinking.

What am I going to write about? I don’t really know. Whatever comes up I guess. Maybe I’ll get back to writing poetry. Maybe I’ll write about things that piss me off. Maybe I’ll write something just to offend people. I don’t know yet. I don’t know how often I’ll write — and I’m not going to bother putting any kind of time goal on it either, because I know that I’ll fail and then I’ll just be disappointed in myself.

My challenge to myself, and to whoever is reading this is that we would try and live more intentionally this year. Intentionally seek out people who need help from us. Intentionally spend time doing something that is difficult, but worthwhile. Intentionally save money. Intentionally eat at restaurants that we’ve never been to before. Intentionally take our friendships and relationships to a deeper level. Be honest. Be real. Love people intentionally.

We are going to fail. We are going to have to try again. That’s part of it.