Black Friday

Today is the day many of us stand in lines and rush from store to store to get an early start on Christmas shopping. 

Ultimately, it’s a day too many put their lack of discipline and self-control on full display. 

Thankfully Amazon has changed all that. 

Rather than rushing to the store in a heard like fashion, you can stay home and get more done. 

You can exercise control and plan out your Christmas season in an orderly fashion. 

Being generous is a good thing, but you don’t have to brave the overcrowded stores to buy the right gift to show others how much they mean to you. 

Let discipline help you this season. Let it nudge you in a new direction. 

Allow discipline to lead your search with thought and care.

You can get it all done without losing control or frantically fighting the lines in the process. 

Discipline can help. You only have to ask. 

No time to coast

The holiday season is upon us with Thanksgiving mere days away, and Christmas only a few weeks beyond. 

It can bring a lot of stress and drama into your life. 

What to get everyone and how to make every person you know feel loved and special?

The slow depletion of your bank account or ever accumulating debt adds to this stress. 

But these are not acceptable reasons to coast these next several weeks. 

Coasting is the temptation most face between now and the New Year. 

It is in the air this time of year. Everyone it seems is shifting things into neutral and waiting for 2017 to end and 2018 to begin. 

Don’t let that be you. 

Resolve to hold the line. 

To remain vigilant and consigned to the disciplined path. 

Discipline won’t allow you to coast. It forces you to stay in the game and keep moving forward. 

Does that mean you can’t relax and recharge? No, it means you don’t waste your time the next 6 weeks. 

It means you keep getting up early and grinding it out. 

It means you don’t blow all the hard work you’ve put in this year by letting it all go right before you cross the finish line. 

Let everyone else take time off. Let the whole world coast these next few weeks. 

You’ll be busy getting after it and taking ground. 

One Thing New Parents Should Do Before Baby Arrives

This past December, my wife and I traveled to the Hill Country area just outside Austin, TX. We were there to celebrate Christmas and relax before the start of the new year with my wife’s family. We needed to recharge before 2017 got off to a fast start—our first wedding was scheduled for January 1st. We spend a handful of days reconnecting and making new memories with Hannah’s family at the close of each year. In the midst of all the craziness of life, we can look forward to sharing this sweet time around Christmas and New Years.

Small, solitary moments and one on one conversations form my favorite memories each year. One small word of advice has stuck with me from the many such occasions that took place this past Christmas.

We sat in various chairs and couches scattered all over the living room—avoiding the second highest cedar count in recorded history—having conversations as varied as the wind that blew outside. Since Hannah and I were then, as we are now expecting our first child, the subject naturally turned to the newest addition to the family. Amid all the advice and memories shared, one idea stood above the rest.

“When you’re all packed, and headed to the hospital,” Uncle Daryl said, “turn around and take one last look at the inside of your home before walking out the door—it’ll be the last time you’re in that house just the two of you. Things will never be the same.”

It’s been almost three months since Hannah’s uncle Daryl shared his insight, and it’s still there rattling around inside my head. I love the simple truth of it all. Things change dramatically when children enter the fray. Not in a negative sense, but in a realistic sense. I’m sure there are many ways bringing that bundle of joy through our front door will change our lives, that I can’t even fathom presently. I can’t wait. Until then however, I’m going to soak up these last remaining moments and anticipate the ending of an era, the turning of a page.

When we pack up and head for the hospital—be it tomorrow or next week—we’ll turn around and take a mental snapshot of our home while it’s just the two of us.

What single piece of advice, insight or input would you share with a new dad preparing to bring home his first child?

Christmas 2016

Merry Christmas! It is my sincere hope that you have a marvelous Christmas weekend celebrating the birth of Christ with family and friends. As I was looking through notes and searching for some nugget of truth to share with you today, I came across the beautifully written prayer from Robert Louis Stevenson below. May your heart be encouraged with these words. 

"O God our loving Father, help us rightly to remember the birth of Jesus, that we may share in the song of the angels, the gladness of the shepherds, and the worship of the wise men.  May Christmas morning make us happy to be Thy children and Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus’ sake, amen." 

4 Great 2016 Advent Guides

We are two weeks removed from Thanksgiving. I’m sure each of us has undertaken the hunt for the perfect Christmas tree, and come home victorious. Whether you braved the ice and the snow, galavanting all over a tree farm or climbed the heights of the attic stairs to retrieve a box tree, your mission to decorate and prepare your home for the most cheerful of seasons is complete. But, what about your heart? We spend so much time, money and energy on every aspect of the Christmas season, but how often do we pause to reflect on exactly why this time of year is different from the other eleven months?

One of the most popular and oft sung songs this time of year is Joy To The World. Written by Isaac Watts in 1719 few hymns fill our hearts with such exuberance as this one.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come.
Let earth receive her King
Let every heart
Prepare Him room
And heaven and nature sing

Closing our eyes, we can picture Christ’s coming. What a wondrous sight to behold! We sing of joy entering the world in Christ, and indeed it has. But that’s not entirely what Watts had in view when he pinned this classic. Watts had not just the first advent of Christ in mind, but His second as well. Reflect on Christ’s first coming is imperative before we can ever be ready for His second. Watt’s hymn serves as an admonition to do just that.

“Let every heart,” Watts says, “Prepare Him room.” Below I’ve collected four advent guides to help you do just that. You’ll find a guide for men, one for women, one for families and one for everyone. It doesn’t matter much which of the guides below you grab, but it does matter a great deal if you’ve prepared room in your heart for Christ. Throw open the doors and welcome Him in. In Christ God made provision for you and for me. That is after all what Christmas is all about.

Advent 2016: Christ Was Born For This via He Reads Truth

Advent 2016: Christ Was Born For This via She Reads Truth

Seeds of Christmas: A 2016 Family Advent Guide via Watermark Community Church

The Dawning of Indestructible Joy via Desiring God