The Christmas gifts have all been purchased, opened and put away.  The effervescence of New Year’s Eve is a memory.  The holidays are over, 2010 has begun! 

Hoping your New Year is bright with promise, glad with hope and blessed with peace and joy!

Like most of you, I’m hoping that 2010 is filled with more joy than 2009.  But wishing will not make it so.  Joy requires intentionality.

Many ways exist to bring more joy into your life.  But one sure fire way is to serve someone.  That’s because one huge “joy-zapper” is unused talent, which means the opposite is also true.  There is nothing that pleases God more and brings an inordinate amount of joy than using your talents to serve God.

Serving God should not be something done out of duty, but out of passion.  God wants us to serve him enthusiastically.  Repeatedly, the Bible says, “serve God will all your heart.”  That means digging down inside to find the talent and abilities that express the uniqueness of who God made you to be.   When doing what you love, no one has to motivate you; no one has to check up on you.  The passion you feel in your heart propels you to keep serving.  And when you do, joy is a natural byproduct.

God wants you to excel when serving.  Don’t you find that the tasks you do the best are the ones that you feel the most passionate about?  When you do what God wired you to do, passion i stirred in your heart and this  drives excellence.  If you don’t care for a task, the necessary training and corrections will never be made and excellence is impossible. 

Every Black Friday, I shake my head in disappointment as I watch the news reports showing a mob of shoppers rushing into stores to purchase Christmas gifts.  Our ultimate joy is not found in things.  King Solomon, who probably owned more than any man in history, said in Proverbs 15:16, “Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and turmoil with it.”

Joy can be found in serving others.  That’s because a meaningful life is much better than wealth.  As Rick Warren says, “You can have a lot to live on and still have nothing to live for.”

So, put down the remote control, the IPod, the technology that often separates us from each other.  Have a heart-to-heart chat over coffee with a friend, visit a nursing home, watch your neighbor’s kids while she goes grocery shopping – or better yet have dinner with them.  Figure out what you love, then devote those talents to passionately, enthusiastically serve God. 

Want to dance for joy?  Then make 2010 the year of achieving not just the good life, but the better life of serving God in a way that expresses your heart.