Studies show a lot of our New Year’s resolutions are out the window by the end of January, and sometimes we may feel really frustrated. Spiritually, if we don’t live up to our expectations of ourselves or God’s expectations of us we may want to pull back from Him out of shame, guilt or frustration. But closing God out of our lives is never the answer. Instead, by opening our lives to God and faith—even if we’re hurting or frustrated—is how we grow and have the best year ever!

One practical step you can take this year is to make a Stop Doing List. So many of us make to do lists and those are good, but if you want to move from time management to heart and life management, where you put God first, you will need to stop doing some other things to make time for the One thing. I did this years ago and it’s made a huge change in my life, my attitude, and my ability to focus on what is most important and not burn out. My biggest struggle was to realize that if I stop doing those other things, then I will disappoint those people. And it was all about getting to a place where I am okay with that. You can’t do everything. You can’t please everyone. But you can focus on pleasing God and serving others out of that. To get your life right you need to get your priorities right. Put God first, discover that One thing, and soon all the other priorities will become more and more clear. Some things will slide to the bottom of the to do list that are now at the top. The result will be more peace, more strength, and more energy. You won’t be taking on life alone. You won’t be constantly overwhelmed by the urgent. You may never get any better at time management, but by loving God and loving people, you can start rocking your life and heart management.

Sometimes in our lives, we keep adjusting to the burdens and weights of life. We carry our hurt and pain from our childhood, from things said to us or done to us. We don’t ever really deal with it we just add a little weight and adjust to it. We carry words and labels that were spoken to us. We carry breakups, friends who’ve burned us, tough work experiences. We carry the burden of a marriage that didn’t work out, a family that didn’t stay together, or a career that blew out. We carry the weight of unforgiveness, bitterness, and anger toward those who have wronged us. Some carry the weight of addiction, something that has gotten a hold of us that we can’t seem to get out from under. It weighs us down and gets heavier and heavier. In general we carry the weight of sin. Sin means to miss the mark, and the Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The solution to our sin problem isn’t simply one more thing, but it is new life that God gives from the inside out.

Happiness is a combination of God’s help and taking a new approach. God does His part as we do our part. We need to start up new habits that lead to happiness. Don’t look over the horizon for something good that might happen someday, somehow. Look at your life today, and do specific and simple things that can cause happiness to well up within you more and more.

Today, you may feel like a nobody. You may have been called a nobody. You may tell yourself that you’re a nobody; but God says you are somebody. You don’t need any more Facebook friends or Twitter followers to be a somebody. You don’t need to look a certain way to be a somebody. You don’t need to have the right friends to be a somebody. You don’t need to drive a certain car to be a somebody. You don’t need to live in a bigger house to be a somebody. You don’t have to be recognized to be a somebody. In fact if you keep making your value dependent on somebody else’s opinion of you, you will never fully rest in the value you already have. God has already said you are a somebody in Jesus. He loves you and died for you! In Jesus, you are forgiven, free, empowered, loved—you’re not alone, you’re not finished, and your best days are still to come.

God has come to make things right with you. He is not disappointed in you. God isn’t disconnected from you. He’s not like that Taylor Swift song: we are never ever, ever getting back together. He wants you back. He left heaven to get you back. He lived and died and rose again to let you know that there is no more need for guilt. No more need for shame. No more need for wondering if God is real, if He cares about you, or if He has a plan for you. You can’t change the past, but God can forgive your past and give you a future. You just need to ask for the forgiveness God is always ready to give.

God is bigger than any issue you are facing. God is bigger than your mortgage. God is bigger than your bills. God is bigger than your depression. God is bigger than your report card, your past, and your future. God is bigger than the stock market. God is bigger than politics. He is bigger than your loneliness, bigger than your frustration, bigger than your illness, bigger than your meager retirement, your horrible boss, your troubled son, your wayward daughter, your addicted family member, your unfaithful ex, your abusive parent, your debt, your failures, your mistakes and your sin. I know you have big problems. I know you face big issues. But I also know that your God is bigger!

We have all fallen short. We have all messed up. We have all done things we’d like to undo. We have all said things we’d like to unsay. And that is why we don’t have peace in our homes, in our hearts, and in our lives. It’s why everything tends to let us down or bring us down. It’s why life is such a struggle at times. It’s why we are always coming up with new ways to fill the void we so often feel. But here is the great promise of Christmas. You can receive peace from God by making peace with God. You can be forgiven and cleansed and restored. You can reconnect with God and restore that relationship, not by being good, but by reaching out to a God who is good, and asking for forgiveness.

The Christmas story is about the fact that even in the midst of the hassle and the difficulty, God has come near to you so that you can come near to Him. You can come near to Him in the middle of a health situation. In the middle of a tough work situation. In the middle of a hard family situation. You can come near to Him no matter what you are facing or what you are going through in your life.  We have to experience it more than just a surface acknowledgement that Jesus was born.  We have to come to a place where through faith, we begin to allow that to change our perspective. Jesus himself said this: “I am the light of the world.  If you follow me you won’t have to walk in darkness because you will have the light that leads to life.” When you are in the darkness of loneliness, depression, addiction or pain – He is the light that can not only lead you out, but can also lead you to life. 

Christmas means you are inherently loved and valued because God says you were worth fighting and dying for. Christmas means you are not alone in your challenges; that God shows up to comfort you in suffering and works His good in all things. Christmas means you are never trapped and condemned by your shortcomings or all the bad things you've done. You don't have to pay for your mistakes at God's feet. Jesus already has. Grace, hope, forgiveness and true love: it was all born Christmas day. That is good news. Receive it—really receive it—and Christmas will start to come to life in you despite the mess. It’s not about a having the perfect Christmas; it’s about celebrating the perfect Savior.

This holiday season, spend and give in honor of the One who spent all He had to give you all you need. Invest that extra time and effort in honor of celebrating Jesus. Resist all the temptations to just meet expectations, rather than share the joy of the holiday. Share God’s love with an ever-growing family, making room for their faults and room for the forgotten, because Jesus came to this messy, crowded world to save us from our sins and love us all the way to heaven.

If you have to choose between grace and haste, choose grace. Spend the extra time listening to person who calls, even when they start complaining. Let other people cut in line or steal your parking space. Be thankful for the cards you receive, enjoy them, before you feel the pressure to respond because you haven’t gotten theirs out yet. Accept gifts graciously, thankfully, even if your gift-equality is out of whack. Watch those cheesy old movies with your family (snuggle even though your kids are wiggly or huge). Listen to the music, even though you have heard it all before. Go through all the traditions—slowly. Take time to notice the lights, smell the smells and most of all take in the story of Jesus all around you during this time of year. You might have a thousand things to do, but don’t skip out on church and don’t blow past Jesus. He’s the reason for it all. Have a personal encounter with Him. Feel that joy and awe again. That’s what we all really want, isn’t it? You don’t get that by going faster. Grace is incompatible with haste.

Check out Romans 9:25-26: “I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved. In the place where they yelled out, “You’re nobody!” they’re calling you “God’s living children.” I love this truth that God shows up and turns nobodies into somebodies. That’s what Christmas is all about! God showing up to turn nobodies into somebodies.

Jesus is the reason you celebrate, and the more you celebrate Him within your traditions, the more of His joy you receive. Celebrate the season with Jesus and for Jesus. He’s worth whatever you give for Him. He blesses when you give in His name. He shows up when you gather in His honor. Immanuel means God with us, even in the crazy hustle of Christmas!

C. S. Lewis once wrote a great description of what a Jesus-follower might look like in his book "Mere Christianity.” He said, “They will not be very like the idea of ‘religious people’ which you have formed from your general reading. They do not draw attention to themselves. You tend to think you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less. They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from.” –C. S. Lewis. How many of you would like to meet someone like that and become someone like that? It’s all about grace.

There is a simple joy in partnership with God. I believe walking with God in faith this holiday we can have a child-like joy, even in tough circumstances. Not child-ish, but childlike. You know, as I talk to people, I hear this a lot. I hear them say, “Christmas is for kids.” It is. It is for kids. It’s wonderful for kids. What I think sometimes is implied in that is that it’s not for adults either. But the greatest gift at Christmas is Jesus and He can be experienced in our hearts and lives, no matter what age we are, and I believe it can lead to simple joy in tough seasons.

It's so easy to get the simple message of Christmas confused and mixed up in the business of the season. No matter how many times we translate or re-invent or add on to the meaning of Christmas, it all comes back to Jesus. If you want your Christmas to have more meaning, you need to get back to the original meaning. What was the important message the Angel conveyed? What is the good news we are to receive? Simply this: the Savior, the Messiah, has been born. Embrace the true meaning today—the reason we celebrate Christmas.

Author Philip Yancey had a great thought the other day that he shared on Facebook. He was playing some music at the piano, a hobby of his, and the sheet music had something in it called Grace Notes. These are little pieces of extra music, flourishes, placed into the melody to make it even more beautiful and special. They are not essential. They are also not easy. They make it a lot harder to play. Then he noticed at the bottom of the sheet of music there was commentary on this section that began with this line: “Grace is not compatible with haste.” Isn’t that true? It’s true of these grace notes in a hard piece of music. And it’s true of our lives. It’s true of Christmas and the miracles we hope to receive. Grace is not compatible with haste. If you rush it you can run right by it. Rush right past it. So if you want to make a way for a miracle you need to slow down to the pace of grace.

How do you do make God a priority in your life? My friend Craig Groeschel says this, “Successful people do consistently what other people do occasionally.”—Craig Groeschel. If you want a specific outcome you need to focus on specific inputs. Don’t just set outcome goals, but also set input goals. If the outcome is partnership with God then the input needs to be something like starting off your day with God. Just take a few minutes each day to read the Bible and pray—open up a conversation with God. Communicate with your partner. Then you should start off your week with God by attending our weekend experiences. If you miss a week, you miss a lot. You miss the chance to be encouraged. You miss the chance to be challenged. You miss the chance the make way for His movement in your life.

Christmas can be full of hurt. Pain doesn’t take a holiday, does it? Christmas is a very painful time for a lot of people. Sometimes it’s the grief of missing a loved one who has passed on. Sometimes it’s living in a sick or handicapped body. Sometimes a single person or a divorcee dreads spending another lonely Christmas wondering why. Families of military men and women miss loved ones even more at Christmas than any other time of the year. Christmas can’t only be full of hassles; it can be full of a lot of hurt. We stand back and say, “Lord, why do you allow pain at Christmas?  Why am I going through this?  Why is my family facing these struggles this year?” I don’t know why you may be going through what you are going through, but I believe with all of my heart that God can do a miracle in your life as you follow Him in faith. For some of you that miracle may be some internal healing from pain in the past.