The holidays are a wonderful time for millions of people to celebrate life and the blessings of God, but for a very large part of our population the holidays represent a time of depression and an overwhelming sense of loss.  Many people have lost loved ones that were very close to them and this year represents the very first year that they will have to “celebrate” alone.  If you, or you know someone, that is in this situation here are ten things that might help you navigate this tumultuous time.

1. Don’t just sit and meditate on the person that is no longer with you.
2. Don’t attempt to recreate the same traditions without the person.
3. Don’t buy them a gift in memory of them.
4. Don’t watch sad or emotional movies.
5. Don’t feel guilty for experiencing joy.
6. Do find someone to spend time with (yes, you do know people.  Think!)
7. Do spend time outside of your home
8. Do find someone to do something for.
9. Do something that you enjoy doing that you did not do with your lost loved one.
10. Do keep yourself busy.

If you act now you can beat the rush.  Think about it, in just a couple of short weeks we will be on the threshold of Christmas, the most commercial and religious holiday of the year.  With that comes the old sagging (like grandma’s triceps) debate of “Happy Holidays” verses “Merry Christmas.”    So in order to beat the rush you need to choose your holiday (or Christmas) greeting now.

Right about now you’re hoping that I stay true to my Christian heritage and put up a theological smoke screen to support the boycotters in their attempt to force certain stores to put those darn words of “Merry Christmas” back on their walls.  Yea verily, tear down thy Happy Holiday idols, and replace it with the most holy of holy phrases, “Merry Christmas.” Because after all, Christmas means, “the Mass of Christ.”  It’s all about Jesus and his birth.  Plus, we all feel better about ourselves if we can join in the major flow of commercialism, buying selling and indebting ourselves to the great machine, and still make the clarion call of MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Of course the one thing we are absolutely positive of is that Jesus was not born on Christmas.  More than likely it was sometime during the summer like June or July, but not December.  That just doesn’t line up with historical fact and biblical timelines.  So why in December you ask?  I’ll save you the long description, but basically the ruler at the time was trying to keep peace between Christians and the Romans…So he combined the two holidays into one.  Viola’, Christmas.  So historically the celebration of Jesus’ birth has almost always shared the day with someone else…Hmmmm.  Maybe happy holidays fits better.

I know you think this is sacrilege, but what is the important thing about Christmas?  I know what it is for me but I’m not living your life.  Personally when I see people force verbiage like Merry Christmas, or Happy Holidays on anyone it’s foolishness.  It’s not a verbiage thing.  It never has been and it never will be.  It’s about something much deeper and more profound than a celebration or shallow words.  It is about taking time out to remember and celebrate the birth of Christ.  It is the one time of the year where 98% of Americans turn their thoughts to good tidings, joy, peace, and love.  Wow.  Tell me one other time during the year where you can get the majority of the population of our country focusing on the fruits of the Spirit.  Interesting huh?   So let’s all beat the rush and put down our verbiage placards of dissention, and recognize that there is no better time of the year to talk about, and lead others to, a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ.

My guest blogger today is Vina Howell.  Vina is our graphic and web designer at SouthPoint and she is so gifted it’s actually scary.  Her are some of her thoughts.

“Good Art Sends a Different Message to Everyone. Good Design Sends the Same Message to Everyone.” – John O’Nolan

At this moment in my life, I think I’m ready to be an artist. What’s the difference between a designer and an artist? Artist express themselves through their unique taste, designers express the brand/ the company/ the people with their unique taste. Good art is talent; good design is skill. Design solves a problem; art evokes an emotion. Design has a practical purpose; art has a provoking purpose. Art is subjective; design is objective. Design has a client to please; art pleases those who connect with it.

Artist are dreamers, they break the rules, and create things that were truly just a figment of the imagination. An artist that parades as a designers soon becomes restless because they realize they are not living up to their God-given gifts and talents. They have been parading as a designer all this time, relying on their skill, doing things that are practical and living out the dream someone else had for their lives.

When an artist encounters the ultimate artist, the one who creates from nothing- The Creator God, things change. They began to see what others cannot or refuse to see. They look through a different lens that allows them to draw their life in a way that changes the lives of others. They are able to take the things that God has uniquely placed inside of them and pour them out on the canvas of someone else’s life.

Good art sends a different message to everyone. It crosses cultural and language barriers. It communicates in a way that written and verbal messages cannot. Artists create art that is subjective and everyone may not get why artist do what they do or why a piece of art is the way it is. But those who connect with it can be changed forever.  I think we all can choose to be artist. After all, “a life well lived is the most exquisite work of art.” –Erwin McManus

I once read that Vince Lombardi used to gather his football players before the game and tell them, “in a few hours you will be back in this same room and you will have one of two things: either ‘reasons’ or ‘results,’” and then he would ask, “So what’s it going to be?”

If you strive and work towards, and in partnership with reasons, you appear to everybody to be a very reasonable person.  And after all this is a much easier path than all the rest.  You work towards something, or try and achieve something and anytime anything arises that is very plausible, we use that to deter us.  Some might call it an excuse, but your problem or situation is reasonable after all.  You have a reason why you couldn’t achieve your desired goal, and everybody understands because you appear to be a very reasonable person by deterring your desired path due to valid reasons.

I see people all the time that are not happy with their life or the outcomes they are getting.  They complain, and they are always quick to tell me why they couldn’t do this or that.  They have a viable reason for everything! You will always have reasons to not achieve, especially if you are working for reasons.

Vince Lombardi knew that he had just taken over a losing team.  When he took over the Green Bay Packers, they were 1 and 11.  They had a reason for every point scored against them and every loss.  They had been playing for reasons instead of results.  The purpose of stepping on a football field is to win, not find reasons for losing.  In no time at all Vince turned those Packers from a losing team, into the Superbowl champions.  Did they train hard?   I’m sure they did, but history shows us that hard training is not enough.  Vince had to change their mindsets from reasons to results.

Let me challenge you.  How do you end your day?  Do you find yourself telling others and your family the reasons you didn’t accomplished things, or are you enjoying the results of your labor?  If you answer that with, “you just don’t understand.”  Or any other reason….well you get the idea.

You are a new creation in Christ.  You have been given the mind of Christ.  Even though you might look reasonable to all your peers, what results are you seeing?  It’s time to put aside all the reasons, and begin working towards some results.

I don’t read anything in the Minor Prophets very often.  In fact the only time I really go there is while reading the One Year Bible….But this morning I felt compelled to read Habakkuk, and I’m glad I did.

Maybe it’s just me but times seem to be a bit overwhelming.  Everything is not going like it was supposed to.  I had my entire life planned out when I was five, but when the fireman thing fell through I went with preaching and it’s been pretty good so far.  Of course that’s not to say that it hasn’t had its ups and downs.  Yes there are struggles.  Yes there are more hurts than I ever knew where possible and there have been moments of terror mixed with agony.  Yep, Pastoring is by far the most trying and heavy thing I have ever done in my entire life.  But don’t misunderstand me, I’m not complaining; I’m just filling you in on some background to help you enjoy a great God moment.

So, here I am feeling the….well…..let’s just call it weight……So here I am feeling the weight of what I do, and I feel drawn to read Habakkuk.

And God blows my mind.

Maybe He’s saying it to you too.

Habakkuk was going through the hardest time ever.  EVER!  [you can read it yourself] At the end of the book, in Chapter 3:18 Habakkuk pens this:

“Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.  I will be joyful in God my savior.  The sovereign Lord is my strength, He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and enables me to go on to the heights.”

You can just hear and feel the choice he is making.  In spite of the terror, in spite of the famine, in spite of the doomsayers and all the negativity he chooses joy!  That joy is so far from him he even has to make this declaration.  I choose joy!

All too often we think joy is something that is handed to us, but it’s not.  Nothing is handed to us, everything is a choice.  Which mindset are you going to walk in today?  If you say you don’t have a choice in the matter then you just chose a victim mindset.  But you have the opportunity to join Habakkuk, and me, and today we choose joy.  Joy in spite of the junk.  Joy in spite of the pain.  Joy in site of our lack.  Joy in spite of everything the world throws our way.  I choose joy.

Go ahead and make a verbal declaration – that means out loud – ‘I will be joyful in God my savior today.  He gives me strength.’

Sometimes I write an entry with a specific group of people in mind.  Sometimes I write an entry with nobody in mind, but this one I write with me in mind.  I’ve been reading a book entitled “Leading on Empty” by Wayne Cordeiro and it has been spectacular!  What an amazing book for leaders.  If you lead anything, you need to read this book.

Today I came across this thought and I want to share it here:

Four Life Courses To Choose From:

1.  A Life of Reaction

We plod forward on course until something happens to us and we change course.  We assume it’s “God’s Will” because it is really the only door open.  We live reacting to everything, creating nothing.  A life that is lived by default.

2.  A Life of Conformity

Going along with the crowd.  We often allow the way we look to trump what we believe.  This is the path taken by those who feel best when they are needed, and who thrive on being liked.  Leo Buscaglia once said, “The easiest thing to be in the world is you.  The most difficult thing to be is what the other people want you to be.”

3.  A Life of Independence

Purposefully steering your life away from the current majority.  Unfortunately you then align yourself with people just like you forming a clan of virtual clones.  Whatever sets you a part is trendy as long as it distinguishes you as different than the current majority.  It is a self-delusional way to live.

4. A Life of Intentionality

This is the life that you choose.  It is the best you now.  Things that come at you and force themselves into your life, you choose which ones you allow in based on your pre-determined intentionality.  You know where you are going and you are fully aware of what you are becoming.  You are daily stepping towards the new and best you.  It’s choosing a life that brings honor to God and your family.  It is not a victim mentality of what you were given or the cards you were dealt, but instead it is you picking up the deck of cards and staking the deck in your favor.

There are so many things I want to do.  I have a mental list of things I want to accomplish and that I want to achieve before I die.  Now I know that I should be writing them down because that’s the smart thing to do, but I haven’t, and I’m probably not going to either.  I tell you this because I was sent down a unique path today when I was reading First Chronicles this morning.  It was the story of when King David wanted to build a house for God.  And God told him that he did not want David to build the house because he had done too much fighting and too much killing.  Therefore he wanted David’s son Solomon to build the temple.  God said that Solomon would be a man of peace.

I got to thinking that God is the one who directed and guided David to fight.  David is the one, by God’s sovereign hand, who brought peace to a country that had only known war.  Through David and his exploits, he subdued all of the Lord’s enemies and ushered in a season of peace.  Then when David wanted to do something not so bloody, but nice and peaceful God says no you can’t, but your son can.  That seems a bit unfair don’t ya think?  I think that, but then again I’m very short sighted.  I’m egotistically predisposed to actually think that everything revolves around me.

God began to help me realize that just because I have things in my heart and in my spirit that I want to do does not necessarily mean that I will get to do them with my life.  What if God actually sees outside my lifetime and into the lifetime of my children?  What if he is not just a now God, but a mulit-generational God?  My kids, the next generation, how can I invest in them?

I think of my Grandpa Joe who used to live here in Mississippi and plant churches in the 1950’s.  I wonder what dreams he had for the Kingdom of God and what he wanted to accomplish for the Kingdom of God.  He has passed, but here I am planting churches once again in Mississippi.  Wow!  Maybe God knows something.  And then I think back to King David and what he did.  What was his attitude?  When God told him no, then David shifted gears and did everything he could to prepare the means for his son Solomon to build the temple.  He began a huge effort to amass gargantuan amounts of materials so that his offspring could do what he could only dream.

So ponder with me if you will…what should we be doing to prepare for our children to do great things?  What can we lay our hands on now, that will set them up for a generational victory?  Are we making steps to advance the kingdom of God generationaly, or are we too busy complaining about what we can’t do, what we don’t have, and what we aren’t allowed to do?  As for me, I’ve decided that my kids do matter, and I want my ceiling to be their floor. Where my dreams stop, I want theirs to begin.  Let my furthest point in life be their first step.

Ever heard of Chuck Yeager?  No it is not the guy who invented Jagermeister.  Chuck Yeager is the first guy to ever break the sound barrier.  Now that does not mean he was the first guy to fly a plane that was capable of breaking the sound barrier because the government had several planes before him that were capable of breaking the barrier, but no pilot ever achieved it.

Other pilots climbed in these planes and attempted to break the sound barrier, but just prior to breaking the barrier the plane would shake ferociously, so the pilot would back off and slow down, and then crash.  That happened several times with different pilots.  Their fear caused them to back off and subsequently, fail.  Chuck Yeager went up, and when he reached the point of shaking, he accelerated all the more.  He later said that if he was gonna go out, then he was gonna go out in a blaze of glory.  So he accelerated and BOOM!  He broke through to a whole other world.

What barrier are you facing right now that fear is telling you to back off of?  You’re shaking and thinking that it won’t work, consumed and worried about failing.  If you back off now in fear, failure is inevitable.  When the problems of the world grow loud, and everything around you seems to be unstable and shaking, that is precisely the exact time to accelerate even more!  Push through.  Don’t stop.  The barrier in front of you was meant to be broken.

Fear can be so paralyzing that many times when we are in the middle of it, all we can think to do is back off.  There is nothing wrong with fear, but what we do with that fear and how we respond in the middle of that fear makes all the difference in the world.  The only people that the world remember are the ones that have faced fear, and pushed through to the other side.

So right now what’s your fear?  What are you scared of?  What area of your life do you feel the shaking?  Take a minute to identify that area and then write down three specific steps to accelerate into the middle of it to break through that barrier.

I like to be known.  It just feels good to be recognized when I’m in a store, or out and about.  It feels especially good when I come home and my family still recognizes me.  Now wanting to be recognized and known might sound a bit narcissistic to you, and maybe it is, but I’m being honest.  In fact, I think there is this innate desire in all of us to be known.  I don’t know who sang the song, but in the theme song to the old show, Cheers, ‘sometimes you wanna go, here everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came…’  The guy is brilliant, and prophetic.  Because here I sit and I wanna go somewhere where everybody knows my name, and not be forgotten.

I think the worse thing would to be forgotten.  Unfortunately, that is the corner that the enemy often tries to paint us into.  He pushes us and shoves us until our back is against a wall and we feel we have nowhere to turn, and then to add insult to injury he strives to make us think we have been forgotten.  But we’re not forgotten.  We are not alone.  In 1 Peter 1: 2, the Message translation says, “Not one missing, not one forgotten.  God the Father has his eye on each of you.”

It helps me get through the day knowing that God’s eye is on me.  That used to scare me and make me think he was waiting to slam me with his judgment, but now I realize that he is actually got his eye on me because he knows me and loves me.  He wants and desires for me to be successful and fulfilled.  He actually knows my name and my address and then on top of all that he wants me to live a life that is over the top amazing!  Yup, that’s my God, and he knows my name.

In Galatians Paul tells us that we are “known by God.”  Have you ever thought about that or contemplated that?  We are told may times in many different ways that we need to know God, or start a relationship with God, or move closer to God, but don’t you find it ironic that we are told to do the very things that we cannot?  How can we “know” the creator of all?  How can we move “closer” to an invisible being?

I don’t know about you but it comforts me to think that God knows me, and he is continually trying to move closer and closer to me.

So today,

just stop.

Stop running.

Stop trying so hard to do everything and make everything happen, just slow down and recognize that God does know right where you are, and he even knows the issues that you are struggling with.  In fact, if you’d slow down for just a second, he might even wrap his arms around you and give you the answers to deepest questions.

My Grandparents were smart, actually brilliant.  I used to think they were just hard working northern farmers who grew oats and had a few cows, and through that menial task they loved Jesus.  Of course, I also thought they hadn’t a clue about how to enjoy life.  Anytime together with other believers they would hope, wish, and sing about heaven and meditate heartily on the rapture.  “What about the fact that Jesus came to give us life more abundantly in John 10:10?”  I would ask. They would always smile and go back to singing another song about heaven.  My grandparents were brilliant.

I say that because we miss it some times.  We aren’t really that interested in going to Heaven.  Be honest, we’re not.  We are more interested and more consumed with making our lives better on earth than anything else.  Heaven is an after thought.  Heaven is in the sweet by and by, so we simply dismiss it as too far away to impact our today.  In America we are very interested in Jesus fixing our today.  We want our life to contain less pain, less persecution, and less hardship.  “Now” is the focus of our prayers.

Honestly I am the first one on that bandwagon.  I firmly believe that Jesus did say that he came to give us life, and life more abundantly.  We are supposed to be blessed.  We are not supposed to be out begging for bread, and the list goes on and on.  We are a blessed people.  However, the truth of the matter is that God told us to store up treasure in heaven, not on earth.  He told us we would suffer here on earth, but not in heaven.  He said we would be tried here on earth, but live in a ‘Utopic’ state in heaven.  Here is not our true home; Heaven is our home.

So are our prayers more focused on fixing our now, or are we expectantly looking to our home?  The place that God made for us, and sent his son so that we could have an entrance into it.  When you think about it, God did everything to spend eternity with us in a Utopic place called Heaven.  We have to be careful not to be so caught up in this present earth that we actually sacrifice the goal and purpose of Heaven.  The financial times that we are currently in is a great opportunity to either curse God and complain about his lack of help in our hard times, or turn our faces towards Heaven and ask God to come.  Let our prayers begin to focus on the things that we cannot see, instead of only asking God to repair the fallen place that we’re in.

I’m homesick.

My grandparents were brilliant!  How about we  all hum the chorus to “when the roll is called up yonder.”