Doing "So That" vs. Responding "Just Because"

It's Warm-Up Week for October's PURSE-onality Challenge: "A Holiday-Ready Heart"!  Here's a handy checklist to make sure you're all ready. (And if you're a blogger, grab the button on the right, let me know you've added it to your site, and I'll add you to my blogroll!)

This week's give-away is for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. (It's a Gregory Family tradition to have Daniel read this aloud to us every Christmas Eve...and for him to choke up at the end!)  3 names will be drawn -- enter via the Rafflecopter at the end of the blog post or click here to enter!

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“I don’t want to feel pressured by anybody or myself (especially) to do anything that my heart truly isn’t into! I want to do holiday things because it is valuable to my spiritual heart. I want to do things with Jesus in mind. I want to have a desire to do things because my heart is in it, not because something is expected of me. 

I am negative when I do things without checking in with my Lord first, to see if it is something He wants me to do. If it is something He wants me to do, and I don’t want to do it, then I ask Him to gently change my heart, so I want to do whatever it may be. 

The holidays for me are wonderful and so much fun. But I get bogged down in all the DOING, and lose sight of my heart being in the right place as I am DOING. 

Does that make sense?”  

Ingrid

Makes perfect sense to me!

I’ve been a teacher and a pastor’s wife for almost a quarter of a century. 

For me, December has meant DOING the school Christmas program.

Then DOING the church Christmas program.

Then DOING first semester grades before Christmas vacation started. 

For ten years, I was a Sales Director for a direct sales company.

Up to ½ of my yearly business happened in the last two months of the year. 

So I was DOING as many home parties as possible.

I was DOING daytime boutiques and fairs.

I was DOING last-minute deliveries (often on Christmas Eve!)

How I wish I’d been intentional about having a Holiday-Ready Heart when my children were young. 

They witnessed me scurrying from here to there to somewhere else. I was DOING...

• so that my employers would be impressed.

• so that my students would make me look good.

• so that church members would see me “doing my part.”

• so that the company would reward me with money, recognition, and a trip to Hawaii.

I wonder what those years would have been like if I’d been responding rather than doing.  Responding not so that but just

• because of Jesus’ overwhelming love.

• because of the God-given gifts and unique abilities of my students.

• because I am part of the body of Christ.

• because I had life-changing products to share.

I know I can’t go back and change the past. 

But I’m determined to learn from it. 

Having “A Holiday-Ready Heart” means that I’m going to make very different holiday choices.

Less doing.

More responding.

Just because.

(I’m so done with “so that”!)

Your Turn:

• What "so that"s seem to drive holiday choices for you?

• What "just because"s would you rather respond to?

• Anything else on your heart!

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