How to Make the Most of Each Day This Year: Let God Bring it, Part 4
Let’s continue diving into Psalm 37 and God’s simple instructions for living life full out. Choosing and releasing, learning and letting are all tangled up in the bare bones of Psalm 37:1-5:
- Don’t fret
- Don’t envy
- Trust God
- Do good
- Dwell
- Cultivate faithfulness
- Delight in God
- Commit your way to God
- Keep on Trusting Him
When my focus runs like a wild thing, searching in a million directions, the world seems way too big. I feel too small to make a difference. I give into worry, fretting about people and situations, as problems grow bigger than God in my skewed emotions. When my selfish desires strong-arm my good intentions, I wonder, Why in the world would a holy God spend His time on me? These are the moments, the days when I need to keep working on these simple habits of faith. Trust, dwell, delight…
Footsteps of faith
Making the most of each day has everything to do with taking these daily footsteps of faith, realizing they are all different ways of trusting God.
When we keep putting one foot of faith in front of the other, choosing to trust God today, to do good today, to be all there today, to delight in God, the hardest of days will become a most-kind of day.
Here’s the key.
- What we do matters.
- What we choose matters.
- What we believe matters.
I started out this year with an unsettled restlessness, unsure of my path as I keep passing my days with heart trying to work its way out through the clacking of my fingers on a keyboard. Trying to measure what I cannot see, I ask God, am I really doing what I am supposed to be doing? Am I faithfully following Your plan, the God-given desires You’ve placed in my heart? Or am I stubbornly, determinedly trying to fit into a mold of my own making?
Overcoming self-doubt
As I lay my heart open in these words of Psalm 37, God presses in with a whisper, Trust in Me with your whole heart. Commit your desires and concerns, your fears and failures to Me. Dwell where you are…which is in Me.
Cultivate faithfulness by feeding on truth. Digest it and it will nourish your life. Work hard, but don’t let the work take My place. It is part of your life, don’t let it become your life. It is something you do, not something you are.
When we trust and dwell…
God does the heavy lifting, transforming our hearts and bringing out the best in us.<Tweet this.
Concentrate on the simple things, these dwelling things, and I will bring you where you are going. Delight in Me, not in your way, not in your doing. Now is the time to live it out. Now is the time to make the most of each day, and I will bring it.
I am seeing anew that these footsteps of faith, these daily habits of trusting and delighting in God, place me right where I need to be–secure in the circle of His arms. Letting go of myself, I can receive what He is doing, the transforming stamp of God on a life.
He will
bring forth
your righteousness.
The work that bogs down a soul comes when I try to make myself right. Forgetting that God is the only one who can and will bring out His life in me, I run the treadmill of try harder and do more.
It is God’s way of doing and being right that our souls crave. This bringing forth is His work in us and it is righteousness that is received rather than achieved.
How crazy-backwards we mix up the work of this faith life. The only work required is to trust Him, to live life believing. He is the one who brings it.
And when God brings it, we will truly experience the most and the best of each day.< Tweet this.
How are you learning to let God bring it in your life?
If you would like to be part of God bringing it forth, share this post on Facebook. Thanks for sharing!
How to Make the Most of Each Day This Year: Commit Your Way, Part 3
How to make the most of each day? We find it all spelled out in Psalm 37. Welcome back to this series. Part 1 and Part 2.
Commit your way to God.
Ever thought through what it means to commit your way to God? In reality, this is our life journey, and it includes our direction, manner, course of life, and moral character. Needless to say, our way covers a lot of personal territory.
All your ways.
Are you a morning person or a night owl? Is your personality extroverted or introverted, or somewhere in between? Are you a list maker or a “go where the wind takes me” kind of person? Do you struggle to curb your tongue, complete tasks, or keep your house clean? Have you committed these things to God?
Whether your journey has been smooth or filled with bumps in the road and unexpected turns, commit your way to the Lord.
Trust Him with the whole journey.
Say it out loud and write it down. “Lord, my way, my journey, and my life is Yours. I commit my way to you and I trust you with my life.”
- Relationships
- Personality
- Vocation and education
- Experiences
- Gifts and Talents
- Ministry
- Dreams and goals
Right in the middle of who we are and what we are doing, this is where God wants to be.<Tweet this. Roll your cares, questions, and concerns onto Him. Place in His capable hands your hopes and dreams, the desires of your heart. Make the most of each day this year as you commit your way to the Lord.
Which way should I go?
Have you ever tried to go two directions at once? It isn’t possible–believe me, I’ve tried. You can’t go left and right at the same time, and you can’t live for yourself and for God at the same time. Eventually we get caught in the tension of trying to live for self and for God, and this is an exhausting, miserable place to be. I have spent too many days trying to hang on to self and hang onto God.
Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that we cannot serve two masters:
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Matthew 6:24
Later, James writes about the instability of being a double-minded man who is driven and tossed by the winds of life. There is an uncomfortable stress that takes up residence in our hearts when we try to live a divided life–part for God and a lot for self. Anxiety and confusion also result when we only partially trust God, living on the part-way plan.
Go all in.
“Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6 AMP).
Go all in. Don’t hold back. Commit your way to the Lord and trust Him with the results.
He will do it.
The burden of proof is on Him.
Which area of life do you find the greatest challenge to commit to God? Use the social media buttons to share this post.
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How to Make the Most of Each Day This Year: Delighting in God, Part 2
Let’s face it, we are all interested in achieving goals, maximizing potential, and living a good life. After all, when is the last time you planned to fail? Do you ever say things like, “Think I’d really like to be miserable today?” Or how about this one, “I hope I never get what I want?”
We’re just not wired this way.
Welcome back to a look at Psalm 37, focusing on how to make the most of each day this year. (Click the link if you missed part 1 of this post.) Just to recap, here are the first couple of simple (not necessarily easy) steps to full-life living today and every day.
- Don’t give into negative emotions (fretting, worrying, envying…).
- Trust in the Lord.
- Occupy yourself with doing good.
- Dwell in the land (your now, your God).
- Grow faithfulness.
Easy-peasy, right?
How to delight yourself in the Lord.
We can find a million and one things to delight in, to chase after, or set our hearts on. In today’s media-bombarded culture, there’s always something new to delight in. Enjoying God can seem like a nebulous activity of the super spiritual, yet over and over God calls our hearts to find our delight in Him.
Delight in…
- His Character
- His Word
- His way
- His works
- His nearness
An honest question…
Is my delight in God or in other things? <Tweet this. Cuts to the quick, doesn’t it?
Recently, God reminded me that trust is the foundation of delight. Delighting in God is a specific way of loving Him with my whole heart. As I trust Him with all of my desires and concerns, fears and failures, joys and victories, delight will spread wide and sink in deep.
So what’s my job this year?
To delight in God.
What God will do…
And when I do, this is His promise in return: I will give you the desires of your heart. At first glance, this may look like a spiritual version of writing a letter to Santa Clause, but it is so much more.
This promise is about transformation. It’s about abiding in Christ to the extent that His desires become my desires. Certainly there are times when God simply blesses us with good gifts, but the better gift is to receive the desires that He can place within us. This is the secret to making the most of each day–desiring the best things, the real things, rather than the countless counterfeit paths to joy.
- Delight in God increases when I experience His faithfulness and tender mercy.
- It grows strong when I discover that His way truly is best.
- It multiplies when He gives extraordinary grace to a gal who is more than a mess.
- Delight overflows when I count His blessings rather than hoard my fears.
More delight.
- But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:2
- When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, Your consolations delight my soul. Psalm 94:19
- How amazing are the deeds of the Lord! All who delight in him should ponder them. Psalm 111:2
- Surround me with your tender mercies so I may live, for your instructions are my delight. Psalm 119:77
So this year…
let’s make a conscious decision to…delight in the nearness of God.
What’s your favorite way to delight in God? Share this post with someone who could use a little delight today.
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How to Make the Most of Each Day: Dwell and Cultivate, Part 1
Ever stand in the gap between yesterday and tomorrow with an unsettled question pulling at your insides? What next?
As January begins to roll into February, I consider the possibilities of a year. Peering into the coming days, I find myself teetering between uncertainties and opportunities. Something inside pauses to reflect, whether or not my hands stop moving from task to task. Time stretches out before me with a question mark.
What next?
God answers the What Next questions in my heart in a recent quiet time of prayerfully reading the Psalms. His answer is not a roadmap or itinerary of specific things to come.
Instead He fills the open spaces with simple instructions for making the most of each day this year. Lessons for a life well-lived spread across the pages of my Bible, and I discover a formula for making the most of every opportunity and standing firm in every challenge. Join me for the Psalm 37 series:
How to make the most of each day.
Don’t let fears, frustrations, failures or worry wear away the possibilities this year. In these verses, the Psalmist is speaking specifically to the temptation to chaff with worry, irritation, and rising anger when the evil-doers prosper. When things are not like they should be.
When the future looks dim because the wicked prosper and push.
Do not fret. Fretting is a slow burn that can blaze up hot and fast.
Resist the pull of envy, which is pure poison to the soul regardless of the cause.
Wrestling with our emotions we wonder, what’s the solution to fear, fretting, worry, and envy?
Trust in the Lord.
Doing and being are paired together in this simple instruction. Simple isn’t always easy, yet when we live life from a foundation of trusting God, it is the answer that is always right.
[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@GingHarrington” hidden_hashtags=”#psalm37, #Bestday”]Sometimes we trust God, but do nothing.[/tweetthis]
Other times, we are busy doing, but faith is left behind.
We rush ahead doing good in our own strength.
Truth be told, there is a fine balance between trusting and doing that creates faithfulness. It is a balance in the art of living by faith, this doing what is good with a heart firm in the trustworthy hands of God.
Dwell in the land.
“Bloom where you are planted,” is a familiar saying we’ve all heard countless times. Live, really live, where God has put you. Don’t put off abundant living today for some wished for thing in the future. Be fully where you are, trusting God and doing the good stuff.
How many times have we wished away today for some future condition? Life will be better when ______. We’ve all wrestled with this temptation to be discontent with today, waiting for something better tomorrow.
Dwell in the land. Your place. Your now.
[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@GingHarrington” hidden_hashtags=”#Psalm37, #bestday”]Live fully right where you are.[/tweetthis]
Dwelling in the land has everything to do with living life full right where you are.
Dwelling in this moment means we don’t look back with regret.
We don’t strain forward with an unwillingness to invest fully in today.
Prosper and bloom where you are. Dig for the blessings buried beneath the soil of your present circumstances.
Cultivate faithfulness.
The second part of this simple instruction has the potential to reap great reward. Grow faithfulness. Nurture faith by feeding on God’s word daily. Care for it, take effort to grow in God’s word in such a way that it blossoms forth in the way that you live.
When you don’t know what to do next, grow faithfulness, sinking your roots deep into God’s Word. Faithful obedience is never the wrong answer and it fully answers the question of what next.
Which of these instructions do you most need to hear today?
The Best Solution to a Resolution Rut
The best solution to your Resolution Rut: Seek Him.
Feeling stuck can be miserable. Do firmly entrenched patterns keep you from moving forward? It’s hard to live life full, with every day your best day when you’re in a rut. If you find yourself always making goals from a negative perspective it’s time.
Time to break out of your Resolution Rut with a new way of making goals. Time to approach the new year from the best way to get out of your Resolution Rut. It’s time to go deeper to get out of that rut.
Just for a moment, let go of your self-improvement plans and lay your heart open in the light of that blessing we call grace.
Go Deep: Ask God for His vision for your year.
As you seek God’s vision for this year, take time to remember the joys and sorrows, the successes and struggles of the past year. Savor God’s faithfulness. Look at the year as a whole and see the big picture. Ask the Holy Spirit to remind you of the ground you’ve covered this year.
Remember.
Look back at the big brush strokes of God’s Word across your life in the last year. Ask yourself, what is the main thing God was doing in my life this past year? Sometimes years are like the seasons. We have planting and growing times, days of harvest, as well as days of dormancy in the cold chill of winter. When we go deep with God, there are often significant passages of scripture that have been guideposts in our journey of a year. Verses and truths that are part of the season, part of who we’ve become this year.
Reflect.
God often works in our lives through process, one day at a time. Taking time to look at the whole can give us a big-picture perspective God’s faithful work in our lives. Join Him in the grace He is working into your life day by day and year by year.
Respond.
Let the lessons of yesterday show you where to dig in this year. As God gives vision and focus for your new year, respond in faith. Prayerfully give your heart and pen to the Lord and ask Him to help you write out today’s goals from yesterday’s lessons. Seek Him. This is the very best way to get out of a stale Resolution Rut that is often forgotten before spring daffodils lift their faces to the sun. Seek Him in the simple things that add up to faithful living.
Trust God to place in you the desires and goals that come from His heart to yours.
Believe He will bring out the best in you as you walk in faith. This year, let grace make every day your best day as you go deep with God.
As I take the birds-eye-view to this past year, it has been a season of transition with graduations and a military retirement. It has been a year of rejoicing in the end of life as we know it as a military family. Job well done and the race is finished. It has also been a time seeking and waiting with a what’s next pressing on our hearts. As I look back through my journal, the words of Psalm 37 show up again and again. Words of instruction for vibrant living show me plenty of material for my 2014 goals. These are words dig into deeply, letting trust and faithfulness break out of the ruts of the past.
Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.
Psalm 37:3-6
Seek God as you go deep into committing your days to His faithful hand. Commit your resolutions to God and let Him teach you how to make every day your best day.
What is God’s vision for your year? Share your answers here.
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Two Common Resolution Ruts that Could be Holding You Back
Avoid the Resolution Rut by making every day your best day is the first post in this New Year kick off on the blog.
How do you know if you’re stuck in a Resolution Rut that is keeping you from making every day your best day? Growth, progress, and success in acheiving goals builds enthusiasm and hope, adding energy and a positive outlook to make each day special.
Join me for a look at two common Resolution Ruts.
Rut #1: Fix-Her-Up
The first road to a Resolution Rut comes when we always make our goals from the perspective of fixing ourselves, strengthening weaknesses, overcoming failures, or satisfying a constant discontent with ourselves. This rut is entrenched in the glass-is-half-empty way of thinking. This motivation trap is consistently fed with a diet of media and worldly hype of beauty and success, and it is all about what we are not.
What would happen if you break out of this rut, and choose a goal to develop a strength, to take a success to the next level, or to learn something new?
How will 2014 be different if we embrace what’s right rather than lament what’s wrong? What if we focus on turning talents into strengths and gifts into blessings?
“People are at their best when they are able to use their talents and abilities — the traits and behaviors at which they naturally excel” (Gallup Strength Center). Most of us spend much more time trying to fix weaknesses rather than develop gifts that create energy and build joy into life.
Add developing a strength to your fix-it arsenal and watch this new year take off. <Tweet this. Put Strengths Finder on your reading list for a practical tool for identifying and defining your strengths. The book comes with an access code to online testing to identify your strengths. Worth a look for sure.
Rut#2: Repeat Play
Another way we can get stuck in a Resolution Rut is when our goals and resolutions stay the same year after year with no forward progress. If your goals have been exactly the same for the last five years, you just might be stuck on Repeat Play. <Tweet this.
I know from personal experience that this is an easy place to get caught. For years my goals have revolved around loosing the same 20 pounds and overcoming my scatter-brain tendencies. The best way out of this stuck place is to look at why we keep struggling with the same things. Are we making forward progress or just spinning our wheels?
Sometimes break-through is as simple as identifying the small steps that lead to meeting a goal. Other times it is as difficult as hanging on to motivation and determination over the long haul. If you are stuck on Repeat Play, look for the secondary things that may be inhibiting your success.
Maybe the goal is too big, or two vague. There is a world of difference between a generic, desire to loose weight and an intentional choice to develop healthy eating habits, work out 4 days a week, and be accountable to someone. Do you need more information, support, accountability, or better planning? Taking time to identify what’s getting in the way can help us get some forward traction on those things that never seem to change.
This past year, I was able to move out of the Repeat Play Rut on weight loss for the first time since battling Graves Disease 13 years ago. Having a plan and accountability was extremely helpful in turning a goal into reality. This year, loosing weight is still on my list, but this time my goal involves losing another 15 pounds and maintaining motivation to build on last year’s progress. Experience break-through in something that’s been on my list for years provides a positive outlook to embrace each day with hope.
Four things that helped me out of my Resolution Rut:
1. The inspiration of friends that have experienced success. Watching someone I know work toward a goal successfully was very motivating and gave me the courage to try again.
2. Prayer and seeking to grow in the spiritual fruit of self-discipline enabled me to stay focused on my source of strength.
3. Good information and a good plan. When you’re stuck on Repeat Play, there are times when it helps to get outside yourself and apply the expertise of others.
3. I used a health coach to provide encouragement and accountability to meet my goals.
Before and After
Just so you know, I am still working on the scatter-brain thing. Some goals we have to keep working at over time, but getting out of a Resolution Rut and experiencing forward progress can help us move out of a rut in other areas as well.
What steps can you take today to get out of a Resolution Rut?
Share your thoughts on this and let’s encourage one another. What you share may be the exact thing that someone else needs to read. Leave your comments here, and I will be praying that God will bring you out of your Resolution Rut with grace and joy!
Past Posts on New Year’s Goals:
How to Change Your Life with One Simple Thing
Printable List: Simple Things to Change Your Life
A Little Fun with New Year’s Resolutions
Some Thoughts on New Year’s Resolutions
Make Today’s Goals from Yesterday’s Lessons
Avoid the Resolution Rut: Make Every Day Your Best Day
What’s in a year?
They come. They go…with increasing speed. Days turn into weeks and before you know it, fifty-two weeks have turned into a year. It is easy to fall into the busy pace of days and lose the perspective that life is a gift to be enjoyed and lived to the full.
Most of us jump into January, the start of a new year, looking forward to the next 365 days. We make goals and resolutions, mustering up will power and wisdom to create change and chase dreams.
Start your year out right.
New Year’s resolutions have become a traditional way of starting out the year–and with good reason. Optimistic, we want to start the new year out right. When it comes to setting goals, perspective is important. Too often, my tendency is to inspect myself, looking for flaws, those gapping-open imperfections that could use a little fixing. To tell you the truth, this can get to be a bit of a downer.
How about you?
How many of your goals for this year are targeted at patching, changing, strengthening a weakness or flaw? Do your goals rise out of the fallow ground of failure or problems that dog at your heels? Certainly there is a place for this. Sometimes, we do need to address things that need to change. Growth, improvement, and change are necessary. But…
It can be easy to fall into a Resolution Rut.
What’s that you ask? A rut is a firmly entrenched pattern that keeps us from moving forward. It’s hard to live life full, with every day your best day when you’re in a rut.
I once heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. How many years did I have loose 15 pounds on my New Year’s goals, yet kept trying to lose weight the same way with little result? The same 15 pounds, and then some stayed on my list for years. That’s a Resolution Rut!
If you find yourself always making goals from a negative perspective, it may be time to break out a new way of making goals. You don’t have to abandon the old problem-solving ways, just add something that develops potential. Enjoy motivation that flows from your joys and strengths. All of a sudden, motivation shifts from something you should do (but don’t really want to…) to something you want to do. Enthusiasm and excitement will quickly overshadow the sense of duty or obligation that should creates.
Is a Resolution Rut keeping you from making every day your best day?
Join me in my next post as we take a look at some common Resolution Ruts. For more on New Year’s Resolutions and Goals, check out some past posts:
How to Change Your Life with One Simple Thing
Printable List: Simple Things to Change Your Life
A Little Fun with New Year’s Resolutions
This Christmas…Choose to Believe Part 2
This post is part of a longer reflection on choosing to believe when prayers go unanswered and waiting stretches on longer than expected. I recently revisited this story in a new podcast episode, expanding on the faithfulness of Zacharias and Elizabeth—and what it means to remain faithful to God through long seasons of disappointment, silence, and longing.
In the episode, I reflect on how this familiar Christmas story invites us to bring our honest questions, doubts, and hopes before God, and to choose to believe He is still working—even when we can’t yet see how.
👉 You can listen or read the full content here.
And your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will give him the name John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.
This Christmas…choose to believe you will have joy.
Then came the shocking news that there will be a baby. This first message of Christmas turns fear to joy at the news of a baby who will fulfill prophecies and prepare the hearts of many to receive the Christ. This prophecy ushers in the plan of God working in the canvas of human lives–the sacred in the midst of the ordinary:
For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.
It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
Miracle child to a couple half-dead, this baby’s calling is part of this first message of Christmas.
This Christmas…choose to filled with the Holy Spirit.
He will be filled with the Holy Spirit–this is also part of the message of Christmas. Ages prior to this angel’s message, the Holy Spirit was sometimes given to rest “on” individuals to empower them for a specific calling. In goes deeper than on, and John will be filled with the active presence of God speaking out from within.
One of the on-going gifts of Christmas is that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. Holy God takes residence in the manger of our lowly human hearts. The extraordinary meets the mundane. No longer in need of angels to convey messages, we can be filled with the Holy Spirit, the presence and purpose of God.
This Christmas…choose to believe in the power of reconciliation.
Another aspect of this first message of Christmas is the story of reconciliation–hearts mended and strife turned around. Sinful hearts turn back to God. Hearts of fathers lean heavy to their children, a thousand arguments and rebellions forgiven and put away. That which has gone wrong in relationships is set right for one divine purpose–to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.
This Christmas, breathe in the story of reconciliation.
As the first message of Christmas continues, Zacharias does what many would do as he struggles to stretch his limited mind around the angel’s words. Had I been standing there beside the altar, listening to the voice of an angel, would I struggle to believe or would my spirit leap with faith? This struggle is also part of this first message of Christmas. Will we believe the message? Will we accept the One before us–the miracle of God clothed in the soft skin of a baby?
This Christmas…choose to believe with a faith that silences doubt.
Like Zacharias, we can point to logic and count our problems. We can look back instead of forward. We can lose sight of what can be in the face of what is. Like Zacharias we can get lost in the “how can this be’s” of Christ. Clinging to our desire for certainties, we can cheat ourselves of the wonder of faith. We can let doubt silence faith or we can choose to let faith silence doubt. Which will you choose this Christmas?
How will I know for certain…
Inspite of his questions that called for proof, Zacharias’ lack of faith did not deter God’s answers, the gift of hope long waited for. Maybe the greatest consequence of disbelief renders us unable to tell the wonder of God.
I count up so many times I have struggled–what gracious blessing to see that our frailties of faith do not stop God.
The story of the first Christmas message continues with the rounding belly of a woman pregnant with desire fulfilled. In quiet content with life growing strong within, Elizabeth completes this first message of Christmas. Rejoicing in God’s favor, she feels that sweet favor turn and kick against her ribs. “This is the way the Lord has dealt with me when he looked with favor upon me, to take away my disgrace among men” (Luke 1:25).
This Christmas…choose to believe that the favor of God gives life that takes away our disgrace.
Have a friend that could use a little encouragement this Christmas? Share these posts and let the word spread: This Christmas…choose to believe!
Get a free Christmas devotional from Ginger when you sign up for my newsletter! Enjoy this beautiful ebook to spark hope in your life this Christmas. This is my Christmas gift for you.
Enjoy the Best of Christmas from Ginger
A curated collection of Christmas content from award-winning author and blogger, Ginger Harrington. Take the Christmas Worship Challenge, read inspiring devotions, download free gifts, gather ideas for family fun, make a special gift, and chuckle with Ginger’s Christmas humor. Read the story of Ginger’s Christmas miracle in a free chapter from her book, Holy in the Moment. Enjoy the best of Christmas that you’ll want to come back to year after year!
Get Your Free Chapter!
Read the story of a Christmas miracle I experienced in the first chapter of my award-winning book, Holy in the Moment. You’ll read a poignant story from one challenging Christmas in my life at the end of the first chapter. Read the story of what happened here. Give the gift of holy this Christmas–Holy in the Moment makes a wonderful gift to encourage faith in a practical way. Learn more about the book here.
Beat the Craziness of Christmas–Commit to Worship Christ this Christmas
Have you noticed that December can get a little crazy?
Is your to-do list as long as a role of toilet paper?
Even before December rolls around, the craziness of the commercial side of Christmas creeps forward, breathing down the back of Thanksgiving. This year I saw a few Christmas decorations up before Halloween. That’s nuts!
How funny it has become that as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is eaten and the apple pie barely digested, we experience the temptation to rush right out and scoop up those doorbuster, Black-Friday-on-Thursday deals. Now if you were one of the crazy folks spending Thanksgiving night in a shopping frenzy, no judgement–I’m just saying it’s a nutty world out there!
However, now it is officially December and the Advent season is here! It is time to put up the Advent Calendar and break out the Christmas Sweater! Yes! I have been waiting all year for December to arrive, because you just can’t feel good about wearing that favorite Christmas Sweater just any month!
However, as much as I love all of the festivity Christmas brings, I need a plan to stay focused on Christ and keep the chaos under control.
If I don’t make an intentional effort to stay focused on what is important, the pace of this month in family life can get a little overwhelming–and that makes for a frazzled mom for sure.
Who wants to be a frazzled mom this Christmas?
Nope, not me. And I bet not you either!
You may remember The Christmas Worship Challenge that I hosted on this blog last year. In this daily December series, we worked together to move worship to the top of our To-Do list. Taking time to worship Christ enables us to pace ourselves, staying focused on the deeper values despite hustle and bustle that the Christmas season can bring.
Join me for a youtube visit as we laugh about Beating the Craziness of Christmas–Commit to Worship like the Wise Men.
On this video you will find 10 minutes of comedy and silly fun about preparing for Christmas followed by teaching on worship lessons from the Wise Men.
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The Christmas Worship Challenge
Join the Christmas Worship Challenge
Two Ways to Exalt Christ This Christmas
Let Beauty Spark Your Worship Today
Give God Glory: Put on You’re Dancing Shoes
A Lesson From the Christmas Shepherds
Make it Known: Another Lesson from the Shepherds
Treasuring and Pondering: Meditation of the Heart
Fullness of Grace: The Divine Multiplier
Worship by Giving the Gift of Prayer
Believing God: The Rest of Peace
Christmas Through the Eyes of a Child
Celebrate Christmas: Give God the Gift of Yourself
Why You Should Sing in the New Year with a New Song
10 Practical Tips to Deepen Your Worship Now (Summary of Worship Tips from the Challenge)
10 More Tips to Deepen Your Worship Now
Worship You Don’t Want to Miss
Get a free Christmas devotional from Ginger when you sign up for my newsletter! Enjoy this beautiful ebook to spark hope in your life this Christmas. This is my Christmas gift for you.
Enjoy the Best of Christmas from Ginger
A curated collection of Christmas content from award-winning author and blogger, Ginger Harrington. Take the Christmas Worship Challenge, read inspiring devotions, download free gifts, gather ideas for family fun, make a special gift, and chuckle with Ginger’s Christmas humor. Read the story of Ginger’s Christmas miracle in a free chapter from her book, Holy in the Moment. Enjoy the best of Christmas that you’ll want to come back to year after year!
Get Your Free Chapter!
Read the story of a Christmas miracle I experienced in the first chapter of my award-winning book, Holy in the Moment. You’ll read a poignant story from one challenging Christmas in my life at the end of the first chapter. Read the story of what happened here. Give the gift of holy this Christmas–Holy in the Moment makes a wonderful gift to encourage faith in a practical way. Learn more about the book here.
Download your free chapter here.
