Cultivate: An Invitation to Intentional Living

annardaugherty
5 days ago
4 min read

A solitary tree stands on a snow-covered landscape against a white sky, evoking a serene, minimalist winter scene.

I used to make resolutions, until 2022 squashed all of my resolutions. That was the year that absolutely nothing went according to plan. I started out the year with a list of goals and expectations and ended it with a surprise book and a surprise baby. Ever since that year, I hold these visions loosely, knowing that life is unpredictable—too unpredictable for checklists and promises.

But it’s also too short to live on autopilot.

So instead of resolutions, I choose a word of the year. Not as a self-improvement gimmick, but as a gentle focus that helps me handle the ups and downs yet to come, and a way to acknowledge the season God has for me at that time.

Last month, when I sat down to pray about the year ahead, I was feeling overwhelmed and stretched thin and the first word that came to mind was prune. I wanted to cut back and simplify. But pruning wasn’t quite right; it wasn’t the whole picture. Because we also want to add this year. We want to add travel, pets, hobbies, responsibilities. We want growth, not just reduction.

And that’s when the word Cultivate arose. Not as a command to do more, but as gentle guidance to tend our resources wisely. As you look at the year ahead, I encourage you to think about what you are cultivating in your own home and life.

Biblical Encouragement:

A steaming cup on a knitted blanket with an open book. Text reads: "There is a time for everything," creating a cozy, reflective mood.

What It Means to Cultivate

James 3:18 says: “And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace.”

What a perfect verse to guide our homes! Because the fruit of righteousness is my ultimate goal for our home. Not efficiency, achievement, esteem. But peace. Righteousness—meaning, right relationship with God and with others.

When I was pregnant with my first child, worried about all the unknowns, my husband and I made a decision that still anchors us today. We knew we couldn’t force or script life for her, so we chose to focus on two goals that felt steady no matter what her future held: we prayed that our children would love God and bless others. (Matthew 22:36-40)

And James 3:18 tells us how that fruit grows. It’s sown in peace. And peace doesn’t happen accidentally, it must be cultivated.

Cultivating peace requires tending the soil of our lives so that what grows is good and lasting. It means paying attention, pruning out excess, and adding any necessary nutrients. It means intentionally choosing conditions that support the fruit we’re praying for.

Turning Ideals into Practices

Holding the word Cultivate in one hand and our top two goals in the other, I sat down to clarify what it looks like to cultivate the soil of our lives to produce righteousness. I started asking questions.

If I want my children to love God, how can we foster that?

For our family, that includes the obvious things like church, reading scripture aloud, and regular prayer. But while we live out that love in those ways, love comes when we see his goodness too. For us, that means time outdoors celebrating God’s beautiful creation, singing beloved hymns together, and having real conversations about faith while our children are young, curious, and open.

In response to that love, how do we as a family then bless others?

Hospitality, living in community, serving others, practicing kind words, teaching generosity. I added those to my list of things to cultivate in our lives.

What are the secondary values in our family?

From there, I listed the other values I want to pass on as well—gratitude, best efforts, time outdoors, slow living, learning and growing. Not everything gets equal weight, some things matter more than others, but I listed out what we want to cultivate in addition to our top two goals. And I held it all to the standards of Galatians 5:22-23, which lists the fruit of the spirit, and used that as my guiding light.

Aligning our lives with what we believe matters most requires intentionality. It requires pruning away the dead branches, the overgrown tangles, the things that make us too busy for what we really want. And it requires preparing the soil with the proper nutrients and ingredients for goodness to grow.

An Invitation to Cultivate

What I love about this word is how practical it is. It becomes a measuring stick we can use in daily life as opportunities arise. We can pause and ask: does this opportunity cultivate the life we’re trying to grow? Or does it crowd out peace, margin, and presence? When something feels off, I can ask myself if it’s perhaps a place that needs pruning or soil that needs more care.

Jesus uses this same imagery in John 15:1-8 when he speaks about branches being pruned—not to punish them, but so they can bear more fruit. In Matthew 13, he also shares the Parable of the Sower—a story about seeds falling on various soils and how only some grow to produce lasting fruit.

That’s what cultivation is about: preparing the soil. I can’t control the outcomes. God gives the growth; I can only tend the ground. And this year, in that calling, I am focusing on cultivating. Intentionally, attentively, and peacefully. I’ll trust God to do the rest.

Author Life:

In this season of author life, I’ve been able to focus more on cultivating community. And there are two authors I’d like to introduce you to.

Brenda O’Bannion is a writer and retired educator that I met last year. She invited me to come and speak to her church’s women’s group and it was such a honor and privilege to join them. Brenda writes Christian historical fiction and you can find out more about her books here.

Another author I had the pleasure of meeting recently is Elizabeth Daghfal. Last September, during the ACFW bookstore, she stopped by my table and prayed over this ministry of writing with me. Her gentle words and kindness were such an encouragement. Elizabeth has a few short stories published in a similar vein to the Grace Church series—her realistic, relatable stories feature imperfect, authentic characters struggling with doubts, fears and sometimes just the silliness of life. You can grab a free copy of one of her short stories and follow her newsletter here. You can also find her on Facebook at @ElizabethDaghfalAuthor