Prayer

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intensions

In Unity and other spiritual circles, you’ll hear the phrase setting intentions. In casual
conversation, this might sound like setting goals or making resolutions. But spiritual
intentions come from a deeper place within us. They are declarations of how we want
to be, how we want to show up.
Intentions may be set for a day or a specific circumstance, or they may reflect our
purpose for this lifetime. Either way, by setting intentions we are making a sacred
promise to live from divine consciousness.
So we use our most sacred words—I AM, meaning our higher self or divine
essence—to form our intentions. Rather than affirming I intend to, we invoke the
mystical name of the Divine within us: I AM.
I am joy. I am love. I am the presence of harmony.
These intentions may result in our speaking thoughtfully or taking certain actions in our
everyday lives, but more profoundly, they state a quality of being. Rather than saying I
am loving, we say I am love—meaning I am the presence of love, I bring the qualities of
love. Love is my purpose. Love is who I am.
Intentions may express our soul’s purpose, and our souls may even have intentions for
us that we only dimly perceive. But intentions can also be set for a brief period.
Many people set an intention every morning for how they intend to show up in their
day’s activities. This is an exercise  children can join . What is their intention for school
today? How are they going to be? Setting an intention is a more solemn vow than goals
for behavior or performance, although an intention is often reflected in such actions.
If you’re not sure what to choose for your intentions, think briefly about what you don’t
want to be—negative, judgmental, fearful—then focus an intention on its
opposite—positive, accepting, courageous. Some find it useful to pull a card from an
oracle deck or roll the Unity  Intention Dice  as a prompt for setting specific intentions.
Ask in prayer or meditation to know more about your intentions for this lifetime and how
you might carry out your purpose.
Setting intentions allows us to think carefully about how we want to express as spiritual
beings in our human experience. Try it if only for a day and see whether you can add a
little peace, kindness, or gratitude to the world.
From an article by Rev. Ellen Debenport entitled The Sacred Promise of Intentions
Submitted by Prayer Chaplain Donna Burkholder