You may remember that in the mid-2000s there was a huge pseudo-psychological movement around, “The Secret”. The Secret, as it was called, was the truth behind positive intentionality. The video that I bought back then claimed that the church and many other organizations were trying to suppress, The Secret so that they can manipulate and control people. With this understanding, the video I bought claimed you could have anything in the world you wanted if you just visualized it and called on it and intended to have it.

I often wondered what God thought about it. I have a few thoughts that I would like to share with you and back them up with scripture.

1.)  The most important thought that I would like to share with is that I believe that The Secret is real. I do believe that the Lord has given us wills and that we should visualize and be intentional and that with time and with patience we can achieve what we desire. Whether you call it, The Secret or intentionality or a self-fulfilling prophecy, we all can make things happen for us and around us. Use it, it is how the Lord made us and the world!

2.)  The second thing that I would like to share with you is that, according to the Bible, the Lord knows it is real. I don’t believe that we can threaten the Lord, but I believe that the tower of Babel was an example of this.

Genesis 11:5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

I find this very confusing because obviously, we cannot threaten God but here the Lord is saying that they needed to stop human beings from building a tower? I don’t understand it but I accept that He said that nothing they plan will be impossible for them. Whatever your interpretation of this, I believe that Lord knows we are ALL willful and stubborn and self-centered.

3.) The third thing that I believe about the power of intentionality is that most of the things that we have a will for are not all bad. We all have desires for things and to see things happen. We all have a wills to eat, drink, love and be loved, for sex, to eliminate, to self-actualize. However, as the Lord said, we do not live on bread alone!

Buddhists think that (more or less) Nirvana is achieved through the cessation of desires, except for the desire to be enlightened. However, as people in the Judeo-Christian tradition we do not see things that way. Personally, I think the only time we will stop wanting things is when we are dead and have all our desires fulfilled in Heaven.

4.) However, the fourth thought that I have had about The Secret is that as Judeo-Christian value holders, our ultimate desire and goal should be to serve the Lord. This is the superior will. We should not be self-centered. We need to be God-centered and we need to be willing to put our desires at the Lord’s feet.

We are NOT our own gods as some would have us believe. That is the path to Hell.

What does it mean to put our desires at the Lord’s feet? It means that we recognize the Lord as The Lord and we may have to say, “No” to things we are intending to get, if those things are outside of His desire for us. You have to know God’s Word and be true to your own conscience to know what those things are.

Now realize that there maybe more implications and more ideas to debate with this issue. I would happy to hear any you have heard. However. These are some ideas about where the laws of intentionality and the spirit-filled life start and stop.

Psalm 37:1-40  Of David. Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb. Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.

———————————————————————————-W.