What do we intend? Only love. The aim and fruit of an intentional life is love—divine and human. The goal and harvest of a spiritually awakened life is participation in love. When we love, all of life is prayer. Of course, difficulties and difficult people will try to tell you that love’s too squishy, soft, weak.

Don’t you believe them.

If the cross of Christ has anything to do with love (and it does), there’s nothing weak about love. This is one reason I’m persuaded by true Christianity. In Jesus we see the intention of God. Love. Love alone. Love above all. And love is the ultimate power—irrepressible, unconquerable, eternal. Through Jesus we know love—not merely as aspect of God, but as the very nature of God—for “God is love” (1 John 4.8). Love is not an emotion we share, nor is it an emotion of God—something like glue that holds the Trinity together. Love is uncreated. It is the divine energy that continually inflames our hearts and unites us to God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit we actually participate in the heart of God, the Source of all things, which is Love.

So your intention, the concentration of your life around love, gathers your energy to this one thing. You intend to—

Awaken to the power of love.
Look a friend in the eye . . . and hold it.
Speak words that are heart deep.
Listen without judging or hurrying.
Smile when you’re tempted to frown.
Begin that unwelcome task you’ve been avoiding.
Walk in the rain . . . slowly.

And as you do each thing, gather your heart into the Heart of Love, which is the Source of all things.

Say deep within: “I intend to love in this moment as if there were no other.”

And God will send you grace upon the wings of your simple, earnest prayer.