Nobody Wants a Christmas Worth Forgetting.

Christmas time can be a crazy time for many of us.

Presents. Shopping. Parties. Food. Family. Friends. Boney M.

Now all these things are good things (except Boney M I would argue), but sometimes they can overwhelm us and steal our peace and joy.

And so, as part of your build up to Christmas this year, why don’t you make a conscious decision to do things a little differently this holiday season? Don’t just give presents, but give presence too. That means investing in the relationships around you. Spending quality time with the people you love. Going out of your way to be generous to someone in need, or to do something for someone else.

The Advent Conspiracy is an international movement centered around bringing a deeper meaning to Christmas. The movement is characterized by its four founding principles: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All. Here is a short 3-min video I did on the conspiracy to LOVE ALL this season…

Check it out. It might just make your Christmas an unforgettable one.

Turn Your Excuse Into A Reason

Recently I’ve been making a lot of excuses to myself.

Reasons not to exercise, or eat healthy, or spend time in prayer.

And it’s mainly because things have been so crazy lately. As I mentioned in a previous blog, we’re in the midst of renovations at home (never again!), preparing for a baby, along with a busy season at work – not to mention all the other little things that cry out for our attention in this life.

And so I’ve taken the role of the victim.

I say things to myself like, “When work calms down, then I’ll get round to exercising again” or “When the renovations are over, then I’ll have time to do the things I want to do.”

But it is a lie I tell myself. An excuse.

I have always held to the belief that there are certain things in life that empty your “bucket” and there are other things that fill it up. The things that fill me up are:

exercise,

spending quality time with family and friends,

and spending time in communion with God.

And yet when my world gets busy, those things that I know fill me up are often the first things to go! And so I wake up feeling drained and “empty” and wonder why. It’s simple physics really – if you are leaking life and not replacing it, eventually there will be nothing left.

And so, I’ve decided to turn my excuses into reasons. When life gets busy, instead of using it as an excuse “not to”, I’m going to use it as a reason “to”.

Instead of saying things like, “I’m too busy to go to small group this week”, I’m going to say, “Because I’m so busy I must make sure I make small group this week.” Instead of saying, “I’m so tired. There’s too much going on.” I’m going to say, “There’s so much going on. I better make sure I do the things I know will give me more energy!” and be intentional about planning them into my day-to-day.

And so what excuses are you going to turn into reasons this week?

How To Say No

In my last blog we looked at the “curse of busyness”. And I asked the question, how can we learn to “redeem the time” when we feel pulled in a dozen different directions?

As Jill Savage writes, “Most of us long for balance in our life and margin in our days. We don’t like the feeling of being over committed, but we find ourselves there more often than we like.”

You see, the truth is that dozens of great oppourtunities come our way every day, but there is simply no way we can do them all – at least not well.

And so we must learn to say that small two-letter word “NO”.

The Bible says, “Let your ‘yes’ be yes and your ‘no’ be no”. (Matt 5:37)

Easier said than done.

How do we actually do that? Well, I think there are two key ideas here that can help us to establish healthy personal boundaries in our lives:

1) Discernment

Much of establishing boundaries is about knowing what to own and not to own. What we can take responsibility for, and what is beyond our control.

Too often we say “yes” and “no” to the wrong things.

We say “yes” to workload or social commitments that over-burden us, and we say “no” to taking ownership of our own emotions or happiness. We take on too much, and then we blame external circumstances or others because we are unhappy.

2) Vision

If we want to learn what to say “no” to, we have to first know what to say “yes” to. Knowing where we are going and why we are going there is critical. It allows us to sift through the things that are unimportant or ultimately not helping us to get to our destination. Having a clear vision for your life helps to clarify direction and makes it easier to say “no”.

The reality is that saying “No” to something actually lets us say “Yes” to something else – to the things that are really important to us…

like playing with our kids

spending time with our spouse

connecting with God

or making time for friends.

And that is what life is really about, isn’t it?

I’m Just Too Busy

Too often I find myself thinking, “I’m just too busy…”

to keep up with friends.

to get all my work done.

to read my bible.

to rest.

to engage people like I want to.

The reality is we live in a culture that is moving faster and faster. And things don’t seem to be slowing down any time soon!

In his book “Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything” sociologist James Gleick talks about this “ever growing urgency” in our culture. He argues that the technology-driven Western world has produced a “multi-tasking, channel-flipping, fast-forwarding species.”

Interestingly, in his research, he discovered that the more affluent you are, the more likely you are to be anxious about time. He writes, “…increasing wealth and increasing education bring a sense of tension about time. We believe that we possess too little of it; and that is a myth we all live by now.”

And so my question is, “Is there a breaking point?”

How much can one person do in one day?

The Bible says that time is precious – a rare commodity. It says, “Don’t be a fool. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get!” (Eph 5:16) In the original King James translation it uses this beautiful phrase – learn to “redeem the time.”

And so how do we do that? How do we regain or recover that which is taken from us every day by a million other demands and pressures? I have some ideas which I’ll write about in my next blog, but what are your thoughts?