Commitments

How over-committed do you get during the holiday season? Is there some unwritten rule that says we have to do as much as we possibly can during a couple of months of the year? So what’s the deal? You know it all comes down to commitment. Not how many events we can commit to, but how committed we are to what we say we value most.

Everyone for the most part over-commits, especially during the holidays, but whether it is because we feel like we don’t want to miss out on something, or we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings; we all seem to have a way of struggling to say no. We do this because we have not decided in advance what matters most. In other words, we let the tyranny of the urgent, completely destroy our priorities for what we say is most important.

For example, most Christians who have professed a belief in Jesus Christ, would say that their Savior is their number one priority = God is first in their lives. That is, first until an event that can’t be re-scheduled, comes up at the same time as going to Church or Bible study or prayer time, right? This is not about a guilt-trip for missing these things, but a reality check about what matters most.

How committed are we to something, if it is the first thing we dismiss when there is a calendar conflict. Let’s be honest, most people are conveniently committed to their faith. They express it when and how they can fit it into their calendar, and don’t want to be guilted into feeling bad when they don’t do it.

If we take our commitment to our Savior so lightly, is it a wonder why so many of our most important relationships are lacking depth or sustainability? We need to place a value on out relationships, and our commitments to them, before we need to decide how important they are compared to something else. Honestly, if we don’t, the urgency of fun, exciting, and pleasurable will move us to miss, avoid, and even ignore relationships we say we value most.

When we say we believe something is valuable, we must act on it. We act on it by keeping it in the forefront of our priorities; otherwise, it will be pushed aside and relegated to a place to be returned to at a later date (sometimes never until it is too far gone). So what do we do?

We decide in advance, what matters most: what we will commit to, before we are asked to commit to something. That way we can ensure we don’t over-commit, which isn’t actually really over-committing, is it? Its more like we won’t commit to something we aren’t committed too already.

So what are you going to commit to this Holiday Season? Well…

In His Grip,

Pastor Pat