Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

How to prevent Christmas burnout

To be honest with you, for most people, 2020 will be a year they would just as soon forget entirely.

Even as you read this, many of you are trying to figure out how you will be able to celebrate Christmas with your family; what with travel restrictions and limits on the number of people allowed in a gathering, there will be lots of cancellations and difficult choices are going to have to be made.

For many, even the joy of Christmas has started to evaporate. For others, their passion for life and service is dwindling, and passion is so important in our lives.

Bart Starr was the highly successful quarterback who led the Green Bay Packers to numerous championships during their glory days under Vince Lombardi, their legendary coach. Starr was asked what it was that Coach Lombardi did that caused the team to become winners and emphasized that it was Lombardi’s passion for the game that made the difference.

Star replied, “To win, you have to have a certain amount of mental toughness. Coach Lombardi gave me that. He taught me that you must have a flaming desire to win. It’s got to dominate all your waking hours. It can’t ever wane. It’s got to glow in you all the time.”

Pastor and author Gordon MacDonald spoke of the day he learned about the life-changing power of passion. “That was the day I learned that the people in our world who rise to the top of business, sports, academia, science, and politics usually do it because they are fueled by passion.”

So, if success and joy are fueled by passion, what happens when the fuel runs out and the passion wanes?

The Battle of the Bulge, fought from Dec. 16, 1944 to Jan. 25, 1945, was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War II, and was the largest and most costly battle for the Americans in terms of men in combat and lives lost. The battle was a last-ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two and destroy their ability to supply themselves with fuel as they drove relentlessly toward Germany. As it developed, it was the Germans who ran out of fuel.

Despite punching a bulge into the Allies front line, the Germans could not capitalize on this. They had based their attack on a massive onslaught of tanks and other armored vehicles that required huge amounts of fuel to maintain it…and the Germans simply did not possess it. Allied bombing of fuel plants in Germany meant that such supplies were no longer available.

By mid-January, the lack of fuel became evident as the Germans were forced to abandon their vehicles. The 1st SS Panzer Division had to make its way back to Germany on foot.

Has 2020 caused you to run low on the passion necessary to face 2021 with hope? Are you starting to feel burned out? Following is a list of symptoms of impending burnout:

You’ve become irritable and easily put out.

You’re impatient with your spouse and children.

You’re starting to turn into a cynic.

You’ve become critical of others.

You’re serving out of habit or obligation.

Let me encourage you to get refueled this Christmas season by remembering the key message of Christmas; a message of love and hope given to us by God himself.

As Gordon MacDonald reminds us so eloquently, “Convictions generated from a genuine encounter with the living God create the passion to act and the strength to carry out the action.”

 

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