The Holiday Season | Kyle McMurray Coaching, LLC

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Episode 125

The Holiday Season as we call it, is a force to be reckoned with. I mean, we have to give it a name that bundles it all together like some big Tech company would bundle our internet. The Holiday Season. We want to think that we live such an important, fast-paced life that we give it an overall name. Like we don’t have time to name each one anymore. But there are distinct areas of focus that we can take for each one that can be beneficial. You’re listening to Living the Freedom Life, this is episode 125 and today we are talking about The Holiday Season.

Okay, if this is your first episode, welcome. I’m really glad you are here. For you veterans to Living the Freedom Life, you know how this goes, I’m gonna get right to the point here because we try to keep our podcasts to 8-10 minutes long. I mean, when I listen to other podcasts, I don’t want to listen to an hour of someone saying “um”, “you know”, and “like” and not really know what they are talking about. If I can’t explain something in 8-10 minutes, I don’t know it well enough to communicate it yet. That’s how I consume podcasts so we wanted to provide that for OUR listeners.

Anyway, Sorry, I just got sidetracked on that.

For “The Holiday Season”, let’s start with Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving according to Charlie Brown, Sunday School class, probably your pastor and Norman Rockwell says that we are to use that time to reflect and be Thankful for blessings in our past that we may still have today. But this is supposed to be family time. A time to, as I said, reflect on things, this past year, on things that we are grateful for. Things that can be looked on as a blessing in our lives.

And it may not be something positive at first, I mean some huge blessings can come from some horrible things. Some of you will really know what I’m talking about here.

But Thanksgiving is reserved for that warm fuzzy feeling of being around the people you value most, those people who have invested in you, people that you trust and they have walked with you through this past year. I mean, life gets busy and we may not be the best at showing our gratitude towards them throughout the year, but on this day,. . . we can be intentional. Now, I know, Thanksgiving has already come and gone and it’s our culture in the U.S. to automatically move onto the next thing. But I wanted to point those things out to show the contrast of how we lump this important day, this day that tells some things to our subconscious mind some very important things,. . . about a process that is crucial to … well, Living the Freedom Life. You see what I mean by this in a moment.

Moving on to Christmas. Now, we will talk about this specifically in an upcoming episode but I want to point out just as we did on Thanksgiving, Christmas, a “mass” is like a gathering, right? And this mass gathering is a time to reflect on … wait for it… yeah, you guessed it, Christ.

Emmanuel= God is with us. THAT is what we are celebrating.

Relieving the bad from past,… and God is with us for the future. (Providing a hope for tomorrow)

When we lump Thanksgiving and Christmas into one gesture of calling it “The Holiday Season”, well, now it just cheapens it. I don’t want to do that. I don’t know about you, but I live a fast paced enough life that a lot just blows by me. I miss a lot. I have an issue of slowing down to “smell the roses” so to speak. I guess what I’m telling you is that I’ve been guilty of calling these twenty days or so “The Holiday Season” myself. And I’ve been missing a lot of their meaning along with it.

Moving onto celebrating the New Year. No, it’s not just about a glass of champagne and watching some lit up metal structure drop from a tall building while you’re either kissing someone or wishing you had someone to kiss. New Year’s eve is when we get to say “so long”, “farewell” or “stick it” to the things that this past year had to offer us. Having a fresh start, being a new creation and walking into situations with open hands, THAT is something that builds hope, that is what dreams are made of, that is what forgiveness is about, that is where new life is spoken, that is where empowerment happens and new beginnings, THAT is where we gain an understanding of what it means to become a new creation. . . to our core. That’s what He wants for us.

Look, all I’m saying is take a look at our calendar and think about some things.

It looks like a process to me. See for yourself.

Thanksgiving is where we can be grateful for the good in our lives. We need that.

Christmas is where we can gather with like minded people and finally have something tangible to what we’ve been hoping for.

And New Year’s is a time of opportunity to go out and put those things to use. To have a new beginning and live out that new life that you’ve been given. Because if the Blood of Jesus cleans us up… and He died for our sins, we are Holy as He is Holy, I mean, that’s what it says. . . all we need is opportunity to go out and yeah, you guessed it, Live that Freedom Life that He wants you to live!

So, to bundle all of that up into calling it “The Holiday Season”? That’s like someone giving away their entire inheritance, riches, businesses, assets, giving all of that away and trading it for a bowl of porridge. You can’t know the value of it until you are able to look past the temporary hunger.

I know that you may be responsible for a lot of things during these 20-30 days and it may not be a good time to stop and take time, but you will benefit from it. That’s one of His promises to you.

Living the Freedom Life, this is Kyle.