12/3/00 Holiday Survival Skills

The holiday season is not an easy time of year for many people.

We turn on the TV

and watch the most recent Hallmark Hall of Fame production,

and we see the ads that present

brief, vivid pictures of these warm, caring, loving, supportive families,

where everyone is encouraging,

and everyone is sensitive,

and everyone is important,

and where every pain

and hurt

and turmoil

is solved by receiving a greeting card,

and we come away assuming

what we’ve just seen

must be the norm in most of America,

and then we wonder

why our own tiny world just isn’t that way.

But we can’t let go of the hopes,

the expectations

that maybe this year it will be

like it is on TV.

And then, of course, there is the tremendous added expense that often accompanies the holidays-

gifts to buy,

and fancy food to get,

and travel expenses we didn’t anticipate,

and often times

the nagging feeling that,

if we just spent enough,

or if we could find that perfect gift,

then we could fix whatever it is that’s broken in the relationships around us.

And some of you here this morning

have already locked yourselves into a sort of survival mode

in which you just sort of hunker down

into a desperate attempt

to make it through the season

without being crushed by all of the added pressures

and unmet expectations.

Now, for some of you,

what I’ve just said sounds cynical,

and negative,

and completely inconsistent

with what for you is truly a wonderful time of the year.

But for others

what I’ve just said

has provided you with a desperately needed ray of hope

that maybe there is someone who understands what you’re going through right now.

I bring all of this up this morning

because our ability to learn,

to grow,

to honestly examine any new idea

is seriously affected

by what’s going on in our lives at any given time.

And since we will be moving into a new study next week,

one that will contain content that, if we see it correctly, will have tremendous value to us,

I don’t want what we will be doing

to be buried under the chaos

of the holiday turmoil.

So, before we move into that study,

today I want to offer a few holiday survival thoughts

with the hope that they may free us

to more effectively focus on the truths our Lord has for us in the weeks ahead.

Now, obviously I cannot do much about the holiday chaos of the next few weeks,

but I think there are some things

that may help us better cope with that chaos.

It is a fascinating fact

that in our American society

the holiday season

is the worst time of year for depression and sadness.

People tend to hurt more,

and feel more isolated,

and more lonely,

and look for more ways of escaping from that pain during the month of December

than at any other time of the year.

And a major reason for that

is the unrealistic expectations

we bring to this time of the year.

Now, I am not talking here

about realistic expectations,

like, for example,

looking forward to the joy

of being reunited with family members that you see very seldom

and miss very much.

I’m talking about

those expectations we bring to the holiday season

that are not rooted in truth

or in reality.

And this is the way I think those flawed expectations work their way into us.

We start by allowing our mental image of the perfect world to float to the surface of our minds.

We may not focus on it consciously,

but we allow it to hover

just below the surface.

That ‟perfect world” concept

may come from a lot of different sources in our lives.

Those ‟Hallmark” commercials contribute to our ‟perfect world” concepts,

creating images in which perfect families gather around huge dinning room tables,

with endless laughter and conversation,

and not even a hint of any kind of undercurrent,

or strained relationships between anyone.

No one ever spills their milk,

no one ever makes a cruel, or rude, or vicious comment,

no one is exhausted, or fearful, or unloved, or unnoticed.

I would really love to know how many times

the director had to shoot some of those scenes

before they finally managed to capture that 30 second illusion.

Our ‟perfect world” concepts

are also fed by our highly selective memories

of the way we choose to believe things use to be years ago.

We have remarkable abilities

to selectively remember

and then romanticize the past,

convincing ourselves

that things were so much better back then...whenever that was.

But, no matter where our ‟perfect world” concept comes from,

once we allow it to float to the surface,

we then take the second step -

we allow ourselves to believe

that there is something about the holiday season

that will magically transform our real world

into that ‟perfect world” we have created in our minds.

And the result of that process

is the creation of powerful,

unrealistic expectations within us,

expectations that can never be fulfilled,

and when they are not

they lead to depression.

Do you know what one of the most common sources of depression is?

It is unresolved anger turned inward.

What really happens is this -

we begin with our unrealistic expectations,

then we choose to believe there is something about the holiday season

that will turn those expectations into reality,

and when it doesn’t happen

we get angry -

we get angry at the people who fail to meet our unrealistic expectations.

Maybe they aren’t able to be there when we want them to be there,

or they don’t treat us the way we want to be treated,

or they don’t act the way they are suppose to act so that we can feel good.

We may even get angry at people we love who have died

because they aren’t here now to meet our needs.

Or we may just get angry at our circumstances,

because ‟things” aren’t the way we want them to be.

People don’t give us what we want from them.

Or we don’t have enough money

to buy the things we want to buy.

Or possibly we do get the things we want to get,

and then we get angry at the things themselves

because we just knew they were going to make us happy,

and once we get them

we discover we are no happier than we were before.

But we know that kind of anger is illogical, unreasonable,

and so rather than bringing it out honestly and dealing with it

we turn it inward,

we keep it locked inside,

and it comes out as feelings of depression.

Which brings me to my four suggestions

on how to help control the holidays

rather than allowing them to control you.

First, aggressively fight against the lie that the holidays will magically bring your unrealistic expectations into being.

The holidays will not change anyone in your world.

The people who bug you

will continue to bug you.

The people who are mean to you

will continue to be mean to you.

The people who are thoughtless,

or selfish,

or bitter,

or negative

will continue to be thoughtless,

or selfish,

or bitter,

or negative right through the holiday season.

The holidays never have

and never will change another human being.

Only God can do that,

and then only in the lives of those

who are willing to be changed.

Don’t set yourself up for anger and depression

by refusing to accept your world

as it actually exists.

Second, recognize what it is

that our spirits are really hungering for

when we create these ‟perfect world” images in our minds.

We do have deep, God-given needs within ourselves,

needs that He understands,

and needs that He can and will show us how to meet.

And there are two needs

that Christ told us are greater than all the rest,

and I think they have a direct bearing

on the unrealistic expectations

we so often bring to the holiday season.

The Lord revealed those two greatest needs to us

in the form of the two greatest commandments:

Mark 12:28-31 And one of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, "What commandment is the foremost of all?" Jesus answered, "The foremost is, ' Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. ' The second is this, ' You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned this,

but that is part of what our God is doing for us

whenever He gives us a commandment - revealing to us our greatest needs.

Certainly part of the whole commandment thing

was created by Him to drive us into open rebellion

so that we could see our desperate need for our Lord Jesus Christ,

but once that issue is solved

the commandments then become one of our greatest doorways

into understanding ourselves.

They reveal to us how God designed us

and what we really need in order to find true fulfillment in life.

I can say it more simply.

Each commandment given to us by our God

is simply some basic human need

that has been revealed to us in commandment form.

And the two greatest commandments given to us

are also our two greatest needs -

the need for a love relationship with God Himself,

and the need for growing love relationships with the significant people who make up our world.

And when we find within ourselves

a longing for a ‟perfect world”,

and allow ourselves to believe

that the holiday season will somehow magically bring that world into existence,

I think what we are really longing for

is the fulfillment of those two deepest needs in our lives.

We long to know the reality of God’s love for us,

and we long to know the love and acceptance of those closest to us.

#3. Which brings me to my third survival suggestion for the holidays -

rather than passively hoping

that the holidays will magically fix what’s broken in your relationship world,

aggressively make choices in your own life

that move you closer to the fulfillment

of those two greatest needs.

And the first comment here

is something that at first glance

you may think has very little to do

with having happy holidays.

But I will tell you with absolute certainty

that it has more to do with it

than anything else I’ll say today.

And here it is - if you are fighting with your God, STOP!

You will never know peace on earth

until you first find peace with God.

And you will never discover peace with God

until you stop fighting against what He is saying to you.

If you go into this holiday season

hoping to hide from Him

behind all the holiday confusion,

you will come out the other side

with an ache inside you

far more intense

than the one you’re trying to hide from right now.

Trust Him.

Submit to Him.

And let Him love you.

It is so hard for us to be both honest and logical

at those times when we are fighting against God’s work in our lives,

but at least I want us to try.

If you are resisting Him at some point in your life right now

let me ask you a question.

Do you like the results it’s producing in your life?

Do you like the way you feel when you open your eyes each morning?

Do you find a freedom in your spirit

and a deep joy in your life each day?

I know that what you think God is asking from you

currently looks like death to you.

I know that you fear it,

believing that it would never work, could never work.

But honestly, is the alternative you’ve come up with

giving you the quality of life

and the quality of living you want?

It is His deep, endless love for you

that has caused Him to bring you to this point of trust in Him.

After more than forty years of churning through my own discoveries about my God

this one thing I know with absolute certainty - He loves us,

and everything He does in our lives is motivated by that love.

And then, my second practical how-to:

rather than waiting for those around you to meet your love needs,

find some practical ways

to reach out and meet theirs.

And I am not talking about some big thing here.

I’m talking about going into the holidays

choosing to focus more on the needs of those around you

rather than on the needs you have yourself.

Someone in your holiday world

needs to be reminded that you love them.

Someone needs to know you appreciate them.

Someone needs help with the cooking, or the decorating, or the dishes.

Someone needs help with the children.

Someone needs to have you ask them a question or two

to help them talk about what’s going on in their life right now.

And it doesn’t take much sometimes

to bring hope and healing.

Sometimes it’s just a phone call,

a phone call in which, on the surface you talk about nothing that really matters,

and yet with the very act of calling you say what matters more than anything else -

“I care about you. I miss you. I’m so very grateful that you are in my life.”

All I’m saying is this -

rather than going into this holiday season

with a load of expectations

about how others should meet your needs,

go in with a mind alert

to how you can reach out and meet the needs of others.

And if you do,

when you do

you will find something remarkable and very, very good going on inside yourself.

And then, finally,

I would encourage you to aggressively avoid the lies.

And I’ll mention just a few of the more common ones

so you know what I’m talking about.

No other human being is responsible for making you happy -

don’t ever put that burden on another person.

You are not responsible for making any other human being happy -

don’t every put that burden on yourself.

You are called to show them love,

and kindness.

But you can’t make them happy.

They alone are responsible

for how they choose to respond to their world.

And here’s another lie well worth remembering at this time of year -

nothing we ever buy for another person

can ever effectively communicate our love.

It’s a fun thing to give and receive gifts

unless we begin to believe

that those gifts must in themselves prove our love.

If you have successfully communicated your love for someone through your words and actions,

than what you give them,

no matter what it is,

will be received as an expression of that love.

If you have not communicated your love for them through your words and actions,

then nothing you buy them

can ever do that for you.

So, that concludes my holiday survival suggestions,

and next week we will begin something new.