I’m still in holiday mode for another few days.  Past few days highlights include starting to build a huge front-yard rink for my kids, hanging out with family and friends, a great morning in worship at the Meeting House earlier today and getting ready for Jordan getting his driver’s license tomorrow!

But I’ve been wrestling with a dominant thought to move me personally into 2008 – something to help me make progress as a Jesus-follower.  I’ve boiled it down to one question I think might help me make the most progress.

It sounds so simple, but I think it could help me.  Wonder if it can help you.  I like the question because I think it will help make me better reflect the character of our good God in every relationship I have and become a better decision maker.  I think it could add more grace and yet never make me shy away from the truth.  I think it could be huge for me.

Ready for the question?

Here it is:  In this situation, how can I be for the person in question?

Yep, it’s pretty simple.  But right now in every day life, I think it would help me so much.  See, I know God is for me.  And I know He is for you.  He may need to correct me, change me, prod me, but at every step of the way, He is for me.  And personally, if I know someone is for me,  the journey feels so much better, and during the journey I can endure just about any kind of correction. 

In every conversation, every decision, ever encounter with every person, what If I just asked this question, even if my interaction is going to last seconds or minutes:  in this moment, how can I be for this person? Whether I agree with this person, disagree, like or dislike the dude, appreciate or don’t appreciate the individual, in this transaction, how can I be for them?  Even if I have to disagree or seek a different course than they want, I can still do that being for them, not against them.  I think that could transform me, deeply.

If I really engage that question, I think I could say goodbye to indifference, self-motivated responses, judgment, passive-aggressive behaviours — all the junk.  I could, in Christ’s power, be for that person in that moment, just like God is for us and has been for us forever.

I like that question alot, and think it might really help me.  What about you?

Nice to have a couple of days beneath life’s radar screen and about a week of them left.  We are ‘off’ this Sunday, so no message prep — just some options as to where to worship, which is awesome.  I so need to be a worshiper first, and a preacher second. Lose that priority and you’ve pretty much lost it, period.

Some randomly assembled holiday/rest-induced thoughts:

• Christmas was profound this year.  As we set up the outdoor stage for our Christmas Eve service in the cold and snow, I thought about how Jesus would come to us in such base circumstances.  Thanks God, that you enter our fray way before you ask us to enter your glory.  For more on Christmas Eve at Connexus, check out the Connexus blog.

• Time with family has been great, relaxed and so much fun. Someone generously gave us a hot-tub this summer.  FInally got it up and running after several months of "fine tuning" repairs.  It’s so great to step out into 104 F water when it’s snowing outside,  although my brother-in-law lacerated his legs running in the ice crusted snow.  Nice. I stayed in the tub. 

• Went tobogganing at the same hill I used to go to as a kid.  I’m in better shape than when I was 10.  Also nice.

• On Monday, my 15 year old turns 16 and we’ll run down first thing Monday morning get him his driver’s license, just like my dad did for me on my 16th.  Except then my dad made me drive all the way from Midland to Front and University in Toronto.  Talk about nerve wracking, but I never looked back from there.  Want to go to BC or something Jordan?  You drive!

• Read a brief biography of Andrew Murray and the first five pages of his classic book Humility. Took me several hours to digest five pages, not because they were hard to understand, but because it’s what I deeply need to hear.  Trying to get my head out of human effort and into real, divine power.  I think it comes when we truly lose ourselves, and then find God.  I need so much more of this.   I will continue my slow read, praying God lets it really penetrate my life.

• As a preacher you’re never really "off" unless you can turn your mind and heart off.  Preparing an hour or two a day for H-Bomb, a Connexus series on hypocrisy for January and writing for the Orange Tour coming up in January with early 08 dates in Orlando, Dallas and Charlotte.  It will be great to see you Orange leaders on the road!

• Oh yeah, for Christmas, Toni and the kids got me a mountain bike to replace the one that was stolen from my garage last July.  Sweet.  A Norco Wolverine.  Can’t wait to get back on it in the spring.  Never did find the thief.  The cops said they’re sure it was a neighbourhood teen. So if the thief is a blogger and this is you, let’s chat.  Love to hear your life story : >).

Hope you are having or just had a restful time.  I’ll resurface again sometime in the next seven days.  In the meantime, more of God for each of us, I pray, and for the world.

Hoping all of you have the most amazing Christmas.  I’ve been thinking alot about how to spend the next week or so.  Sure, we’ll have a great service tonight in the snow (I’m so grateful for this opportunity), we’ll have some parties with friends and family, spend a great family day tomorrow and Boxing Day, …but I always see this past week of the year and the first week of the new year as a "reforming" time in my life.  A chance to think, pray and ponder.

What I want most this Christmas, honestly, is a deeper intimacy with Christ.  The fall has been crazy busy, and my soul is feeling like it’s time to drink deeply of God.  I blogged about switching my devotion plan last week, and that’s been refreshing.  But I also deeply want to renew my prayer life.  I want to go to another level — a depth, that maybe I’ve never experienced.  I hope to wake up every day for the next few weeks and begin again with some real prayer…a searching of my soul and God’s heart. 

Before I pick up the next round of management/leadership books that are so popular with us church planting pastors, I’m going to read a classic or two on subjects as weird as humility.

I think if I do this, I’ll be a better man, a better husband, a better father, and maybe even a better pastor and leader.   When I start my days deeply in God, I just do better in life.

So that’s my Christmas holiday.  I hope you get some time this season too, and I really pray you find a rich reward with God as your biggest treasure this season.  Let’s pray for each other.  Not sure how often I’ll surface on the blog over the next week, but I can tell you this, time away with God always makes whatever you want to talk about next actually worth talking about.  All the nonsense is mine — anything worth taking away is God’s.

Wishing you all the best, and every good thing from God…..