MERRY STRESSMAS #1 - TIME
MERRY STRESSMAS SERIES
What stresses you out during the Christmas season? Maybe it is schedules, budgets and/or toxic interpersonal situations? What turns the celebration of Christ into a meltdown of stress? The good news is that there tools, principles and wisdom to rise above these situations. When we approach stress with a victim’s mentality we are vulnerable to biological, mental and relational viruses. However, when we approach stress as a challenge to overcome, we enter with the health of a Jesus-disciple. Join us for a new series at LifePointe called, MERRY STRESSMAS, DON’T LET THE GRINCH STEAL CHRISTMAS. Discover with us how to reach the other side of the holidays being both healthy, happy and holy!
TODAY - OVERCOMING TIME-STRESSORS
EPHESIANS 5:15-17 NKJV See then that you walk CIRCUMSPECTLY, not as fools but as WISE, 16 redeeming the TIME, because the days are EVIL. 17 Therefore do not be UNWISE, but understand what the WILL of the Lord [is].
- CIRCUMSPECTLY (GR – exactly, accurately and diligently)
- EVIL (GR – full of labors, annoyances and hardships; pressed and harassed)
- UNWISE (GR – without reflection; acting rashly)
- WILL (GR – commands, precepts and pleasures of; i.e. the flux capacitor)
WHERE THE STRUGGLE IS…
- Stress eats away at our self-image with destructive self-talk
- We don’t know how to deal with stress
- We struggle with an inability to say “no”
- Our lives are filled with excessive busyness
- We sign up for too many things
- We fail to weigh the tradeoffs; yes to “this” means no to “that”!
- We commit to things to cover the flaws in relationships
- We think a hurried life is a meaningful life
- We think doing more and spending more equals more happiness
Until we manage time, we can manage nothing else. –Peter Drucker
Time is life.
When your time is chaotic and inexact, your life will be chaotic and inexact.
Manage your time and you will manage your life.
You can’t plan for a great life without a great plan for your time.
PRINCIPLES TO MANAGE YOUR TIME
This is not a DOCTRINE series, but a WISDOM series.
- Identify what you want at the end of the holidays
- Prioritize giving gifts of shared-experiences with those you love
- Start with the most important and least urgent
- Budget your time with the same wisdom you budget your money
- Resist the entitlement that you can have and do it all
- Refuse to live in a multitasking work flow
- Manage energy to know where to block time
- Be in the moment, don’t just try to capture the moment
- Recognize that every decision has tradeoffs
- Remember to say “no,” because “no” is a complete sentence
CALL TO ACTION
Write at least one sentence this week that answers this question:
At the end of the holiday season
I want to have the following SHARED EXPERIENCES,
and want to FEEL and KNOW what?