How to Live With Intention & Create a Lovely Life

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Life is beautiful. It is also multifaceted and challenging. So how do we live with intention to create a lovely life full of joy, hope, and contentment? Today, we are going to dive into how to Biblically live with intention to create a lovely life.

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3 Key Elements to Creating a Lovely Life

Today I am diving into how I create a lovely life in my own home, and for my family.

While I have many ways that I am intentional in my home decorating and designing, today I actually want to focus on us as people.

Our thoughts, attitudes and perspective on our homes and lives is the number one factor in creating a lovely life. Without a proper mentality and outlook, even the most beautiful homes wouldn’t satisfy.

For me, this involves three key elements:

• Living a life of intentionality (Biblical intentionality)
• Changing my mindset from a negative mentality of “I wish” to a positive mentality of “I’m grateful for”
• Consistently seeking peace and gratitude in daily mundane routines and actions

Joining me today are some of my very favorite people and fellow bloggers. We have banded together to celebrate a wonderful book launch by my friend Melissa Michaels. A Lovely Life: Savoring Simple Joys in Every Season hits the stands soon!

I’ll dive into her beautiful book more in a bit, but keep reading for how I live with intention and to enter a wonderful giveaway!

Live With Intention | A Biblical Viewpoint

If you subscribe to my YouTube channel, you may have caught my Heart Chat on Colossians 3. If not, you can catch up on that three part series here.

This series is, essentially, how I go about living a life of intention from a Biblical viewpoint.

I must first take off my old self with a worldly outlook, which produces:

• discontentment
• anxiety
• anger
• greed
• selfishness…and more

Then, I must put on my new heart and mind in Christ, which produces the fruit of the spirit:

• love
• joy
• peace
• patience
• kindness
• goodness
• gentleness
• faithfullness
• self control

This is a constant invitation to the Holy Spirit to come into my day and drive my thoughts and actions. This is how I create a lovely life.

Without this first step in living intentionally with Christ as my driving force, the rest becomes nothing but a constant battle between the world and what God truly has for me.

One of the things I love about Melissa’s book is that she weaves scripture throughout. That intentional inclusion of scripture is the foundation of creating a lovely life!

Taking off the old self and putting on the new impacts how we view our life and home tremendously. Keep reading to see how.

A New Self = A New Mindset

Now that we’ve created a Spiritual foundation of living with an open invitation to Jesus to guide our daily action, He produces a new mind in us! He is renewing our minds with His Spirit and that shifts our thinking from one of discontentment to contentment.

One of the biggest struggles people deal with is discontentment in their lives. It is hard to create a lovely life without contentment.

We could,

• get the best job
• buy the most expensive house
• drive the most luxurious car
• have the perfect family

and it would all be for nothing if we don’t seek contentment in what we have versus seeking the next rung in the ladder.

When we change our mindset, all of a sudden the “I wish” statements become “I’m grateful for” life givers.

• “I wish my house was more updated” becomes “I’m grateful for the shelter I have”
• “I wish my job wasn’t so stressful” becomes “I’m grateful for a job to care for my family”
• “I wish I was better at XYZ” becomes “I’m grateful God gifted me with these specific talents ____”

Live With Intention by Seeking Peace & Gratitude in the Mundane

Once you’ve made it a constant practice to live with Biblical intention through the power of the Holy Spirit, and changed your mindset to one of gratitude, the next key is to seek peace in the mundane.

Melissa’s book dives into this topic with each section on seasons. “Savoring simple joys in every season” plays into having a mind of Christ SO THAT we become content and peaceful, even in the mundane.

It can be easy to become consumed by the ever piling to-do list. Laundry, dishes, dinner, work, parenting, home maintenance. It can all pile up if we don’t slow down enough to seek peace in those tasks.

From the most difficult situations, to the most basic everyday tasks, Christ will grant us peace if we seek it.

Ways to Intentionally Seek a Lovely Life

Here are some ways I intentionally seek peace in my life and home:

1. I start by diving into the Bible to see what it has to say about a particular struggle I’m dealing with. Seeking counsel helps create a mindset of gratitude. It gives perspective to a situation that might otherwise feel overwhelming.
2. Next, carving out time to do something I enjoy can bring a fresh outlook to life.
3. Daily, I reframe my mindset towards a task I loathe. Instead of looking at the negatives, stop and call out the blessing. (I’m looking at you bathroom cleaning…at least we have indoor plumbing.) Do this often enough and it becomes your default mentality rather than something you must remember to practice.
4. I also find that putting forth great effort into areas that require hard work can be a relief. Sometimes tackling that looming project and checking things off a list is what’s needed to have peace over a situation.
5. And finally, I practice pausing from the to-do list, looking up at the blessings before me, and just taking it in. Intentionally dwelling on blessings goes a long way towards contentment.

Now, does this mean that we remain stagnant? That we don’t ever endeavor to better our lives? No, of course not. God loves His children and loves to give us abundant blessing.

But camping in a state of discontentment will never lead to a lovely life. So, instead we shift our thinking and invite the Holy Spirit to give us the fruits of the Spirit. That is what leads to a lovely life and contentment in every season.

A Lovely Life: Savoring Simple Joys in Every Season

I create a life of contentment by first starting with my mind and spirit. Those lay the foundation for how I perceive everything in life. This is how I build a life.

However, as a home decor blogger, a ton of my focus is on creating a home as well.

Our home is such a blessing to us. With every update we make, large or small, we are building a home that shelters us and is a haven.

Melissa’s book, A Lovely Life, is filled with inspiration and practical ideas to savor the simple joys in your daily life and in your home. It offers gentle encouragement that focuses on being intentional with your days, ideas, tasks, and mindsets.

These help you seek, create and savor the beauty found in every season!

Pre-Order A Lovely Life Here

A Lovely Life takes what I’ve talked about today, living with intention, and translates it directly into your daily living at home with very practical encouragement. It gives hands and feet to what could otherwise be an abstruse idea to grasp and implement.

I love that it breaks it down by season so that you can seek renewal in spring, refreshment in summer, reconnection in autumn, and rest in winter.

A Lovely Life Book Bundle Giveaway

I’m so excited today to be able to offer you a giveaway to, not only win her most recent book, but all of Melissa’s beautiful books!

You can enter via the graphic below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Each of my fellow bloggers are hosting their own giveaway as well. You can head to each post to enter to win that specific giveaway. The prizes are shown below.

The Inspired Room
She Gave it a Go (Lovely Book Giveaway!)
Shiplap and Shells (Lovely Garden Bundle)
Robyn’s French Nest (Lovely Morning Routine Bundle)

The Inspired Room
Grace in My Space (Lovely Book Giveaway!)
Rooms for Rent (Lovely Gatherings Bundle)
Southern Hospitality (Lovely Evening Routine Bundle) 

You can also access Melissa’s pre-order bonus here (a free downloadable seasonal planner and a botanical print). 

Make sure to visit each of my friends above to enjoy learning more about how they create a lovely life, and to enter their giveaway! Head next to my friend Bre, where she’s offering the Lovely Gatherings giveaway!

Let’s Connect & Read More…

I hope that this has inspired you as you seek to live with intention and create a lovely life!

Make sure to subscribe to the blog for all my free printables and insider perks!

You can find decor sources for my dining room linked via the images below.

Shop My Home

And you can read more of my Monday Musings of Grace here! You may enjoy next:

• Self Care from a Biblical Perspective
• How to Bear With One Another
• Where Does Your Joy Come From?

Thanks for stopping by the blog today! May you be blessed.

~Sarah