Giving Gifts

Giving Gifts

 

Christmas! The most wonderful time of the year! A time filled with breaks from school, parties, shopping, pictures with Santa Claus, decorating the tree, hanging the stockings, family get-togethers, huge meals, cookies, and opening gifts. As children, we dream constantly about all the gifts we want and hope to get. As adults, we strive for finding the perfect gifts for everyone on our lists and the anticipation of watching the happy reactions of our loved ones and friends as the gifts are opened. What a wonderful time indeed!

The True Gift

The wonder of this holiday season and the gifts we give and receive can be so overwhelming that we often lose sight of the real reason for the season. God gave us the true gift of Christmas when He placed His love for all of us in the form of a baby named Jesus. “And when they came into the house, they saw the young Child with Mary His mother, and fell down and worshipped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” (Matthew 2:11)

Our Gift to God

God came down to earth as a baby to ultimately show us how to love one another and to be in communion with Him. So what can we give God in return? I don’t think He’s looking for more gold, frankincense, or myrrh. It’s actually much simpler than that. We can give gifts back to God everyday by the way we live! When we choose to treat each other with kindness, mercy, grace, compassion, and love, God receives an incredible gift. That is what our Father would want more than anything and He gives us a way to do that in His word. It costs us nothing but our time and action. “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up.” (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

Giving Gifts

In The Journey Training, we teach a simple tool for following God’s word. We call it “Giving Gifts”. Gifts are all positive words used to affirm the best things about another person. All you have to do is go to the person you want to give the gifts to, look them in the eyes, and say “The gifts I see in you are…” If I were doing this with my beautiful wife, Lisa, it might sound something like this: “Lisa, the gifts I see in you are unconditional love, patience, courage, a sweet, sweet spirit, a great mom, and captivating beauty.” That’s really all there is to it! You can do this with anyone at any time. You will make the other person feel better about themselves and you will feel better about yourself. It can completely change the dynamics of the relationships in your life and even change you!

Merry Christmas!

Giving Gifts

 

I encourage you to try using this tool with your family and friends throughout this holiday season. You really have nothing to lose by trying, but you have everything to gain. The person receiving your gifts might just cherish your words more than any gift you could buy. Life is short and it is precious! How we live  is our gift to God.

 

From the entire Journey Training team, we wish you a very
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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Create Memories that Last Forever

Create Memories that Last Forever

“Christmas is the perfect time to celebrate the love of God and family and to create memories that will last forever. Jesus is God’s perfect, indescribable gift. The amazing thing is that not only are we able to receive this gift, but we are able to share it with others on Christmas and every other day of the year.” ~ Joel Osteen

Memories that last forever are the ones where something significant happened. When I was growing up, many Christmases were the same; get up early, run into the other room, look for presents under the tree (on the years we had one) and rip into the presents! I also remember a bowl of nuts – not normal ones – but some that were weird looking. I recognized the peanuts, walnuts, and some weird shaped triangular ones that I always used the metal nutcracker we had to open them up. If you follow my blogs you know that I am a slow learner, so I ate them every year and thought, “Yuck, why are these out?” Still there they were, every year. In fact they may have been the same nuts over and over! Then at night Mom would get drunk and what had started as an amazing day usually ended with yelling and tears.

My incredible wife Noell and I decided to make new memories. One of the things we started doing that has since caught on is giving gifts. Not just presents, but gifts. These gifts are given more infrequently than most other gifts, but are free and unlimited! And they can literally change someone’s day and make a memory that will last forever.

You don’t have to be strong to do this; just a little brave. And you have to take off the mask you usually wear, which is something many first learn how to do in The Journey Training. 

Just sit down with someone you love, hold their hand and look them in the eyes, and tell them the gifts you see in them. For example, I would do this: I hold my wife’s hand, look her in the eyes, and tell her, “The gifts I see in you are an INCREDIBLE wife, one that knows when I hurt and won’t show it, one that gently nudges me to put the phone away and pay attention to the kids. You are the mother of my kids that I prayed for all my life. Your love for others is one that is unparalleled.” Then I hug her and tell her I love her.

Then I’ll move on to my kids; I do this individually with each of them in the same way. I would share with them how proud I am of their leadership (Connor), how their optimism and smile helps motivate me daily (Casey), how they amaze me with their musical talent (Chase), how their heart for giving and to help others makes me want to do more for others (Cameron), how I love watching them take care of others around them, and that I can’t last a single day without a hug from her (Savy), and how she has the gift of tenacity and pushes through until she gets what she wants (Sydney), and how it inspires me. I do this one by one; looking each of them in the eye and making sure each of them know how much I love them.

Sure, they can open a toy that they may forget about later, but they won’t forget when time stood still, and I as the man of the house I showed them my love, and at the same time I showed them how to love others.

Try it this Christmas. I know you (and they) won’t be disappointed. You’ll give a gift that will never grow old, be forgotten, or be something they didn’t want!

If you’ve ever wondered exactly what The Journey Training is all about, this pretty much sums it up. We just show God’s love in a new and different way.

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