I is for INTENTION

I don’t lend CDs any more. A friend of my borrowed an album of sixties songs from me about thirty years ago, long before CDs had even come on the market. It was a special album because it had one of my all time favourite songs, ‘If You’re going to San Francisco,’ on it. All these years later, I’m still waiting to get it back and what makes it worse that for ages afterwards, that song could not be found anywhere. Just a few years ago, I managed to get it again, this time on CD and enjoy once again the music of the hippie culture. You would have thought that I had learned my lesson from that incident, but strangely and probably not unexpectedly, I didn’t and was to lose a couple of more albums in the following years, which had originally been given on loan so that someone else could enjoy the music. But I discovered that man does not always follow his best intentions. The funniest point about it all is that every time I see these people, the first thought that comes into my head is that they have one of my albums. Not very forgiving, I hear you say, even over thirty years later. Well, not exactly, but at least I can live with the thought that their intention was always to return it to its rightful owner. IN fact I was talking to a friend the other day, who, at this precise moment possesses two of my most favourite CDs and has done so for just over a year now and his first words to me were that he was intending dropping them over soon, for they had now made their way into his car, which at least is some progress. But I'm not holding my breath!

But let's face it, we're all full of good intentions and it doesn't just stop with things we need to return to someone else. How often do we say, 'We must have you over for a meal,' or 'I'll be round to see you in a few days,' or 'I'll have that cheque in the post this afternoon,' or ' I intend to send you an email or write you a letter.' But we never get around to fulfilling our intentions. And it's not always our fault. Sometimes, something just crops up that affects our plans and intentions and we have to alter our itinerary to suit. But more often than not, it's really down to us that our intentions fall by the wayside and whether we blame the pace of life, the business of work, our forgetfulness, out of sight out of mind, the fact is there are some things that we just never get around to doing.

Being the procrastinator that I am, I have probably more reason than most to take heed of what I am writing. The number of people I have intended to visit, the number of letters I have intended to write, the number of calls I never made, the number of chores I never quite got round to doing. Yet I feel the very word 'intention' carries within it a certain sense of procrastination or even sometimes deflects the fact that there are somethings that we never were going to get round to. Which brings me neatly to Charlie Chaplin, that wonderful caricature of the silent movie world, complete with moustache, cane and worn out suit. But particularly to a large piece of white embroidery cloth upon which the weavings of black, white and red wool began to knit together to pose a striking resemblance to the man in question. Except that it never got finished. I know the intention was there, long before we were even married, but kids, work and a million other responsibilities in the intervening years left it lying untouched for most of the last quarter century. And while the intention is possibly still there to complete what was started, the white wool is now a faded cream and the finished work a faded dream.

'The road to hell is paved with good intentions' was a well known sixteenth century phrase and not without a strong element of truth. For how many have travelled this road with every intention of repenting and believing in Jesus as Saviour but never actually getting round to it. The Psalmist says in chapter 95, 'For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart.' And Paul, speaking to the Corinthian church write 'I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.' If you intend to become a follower of God, maybe you need to put a little more urgency into that word. Make that your intention today.