Our epistle passage speaks of “intentions of the heart.” Intentions are an aspect of will, our free will given us from our very beginning. Our intentions move us toward our desire, our aim, our goal for good or ill. If we want our relationship with God to grow stronger, deeper, the intentions of our heart are important.

It helps our relationship to grow and change when our intentions are to be open and available to God’s presence and activity in our life. The Beloved is always reaching out to us in love, longing for a mutual response to close the circle. When the Holy One finds we are ready to receive, to accept what God has prepared for us, blessings abound.

It helps our relationship grow and change when our intentions are to be present to what is here and now because that is where God is present—in this very now, not in the past or the future where our thoughts tend to take us. If we want to experience the Beloved’s presence, we need to be alert and attentive, to focus on what is right before us because Everything Belongs, as Richard Rohr puts it in his book by that title. God uses that to our benefit and to the benefit of the world.

It helps our relationship grow and change when our intentions are to let go of all the distractions and barriers we have allowed to accumulate in our mind and heart, “to let go of our need for control, our small self-serving worldview, and our comforting certitudes” (RRohr, 10/7/18) that tend to separate us from God and each other. Surrendering ourselves, body, mind, and spirit, to the Beloved makes room for God’s healing, transforming, sanctifying work to be done deep within to bring us to wholeness and holiness.

Since “God . . . is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart . . . let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help” today and every day.