{"id":2206,"date":"2013-12-19T21:47:01","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T21:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/?p=2206"},"modified":"2017-01-05T16:43:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T16:43:00","slug":"do-the-opposite-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/do-the-opposite-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Do the opposite"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/garycombsorg.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2013\/12\/6a00d83524c19a69e20128766651c4970c-320wi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-1176\" alt=\"6a00d83524c19a69e20128766651c4970c-320wi\" src=\"https:\/\/garycombsorg.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2013\/12\/6a00d83524c19a69e20128766651c4970c-320wi-210x300.jpg\" width=\"168\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a>\u201cFor unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Isaiah 9:6 KJV).<\/p>\n<p>I started watching the sitcom \u201cSeinfeld\u201d only after it went into syndication. I guess the daily dose of reruns finally got me interested.<\/p>\n<p>If you know anything about the show, you know that the character played by Jason Alexander, is an inept, self-absorbed, all around loser named \u201cGeorge.\u201d\u00a0Except in one episode\u2013 in this installment, George decides to do the opposite of what he would normally do in every situation. In a hilarious 30 minute story line, George finally gets the girl, becomes popular, gets promoted, etc. Apparently, when George does the opposite of his character\u2019s nature, everything turns to gold.<\/p>\n<p>In our consumer culture today we\u2019ve turned Christmas into a frenzied time of spending and going into debt. The more we spend, the more unhappy we are with Christmas. In fact, the more we spend, the more unhappy we seem to be, period. In a recent survey, Americans ranked above every 3rd world country in the incidence of clinical depression.\u00a0It seems that the\u00a0more we spend, the more depressed we get.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps we should start doing the opposite. What\u2019s the antidote to greed? What\u2019s the therapy for spending?<\/p>\n<p>Giving. That\u2019s the antidote. That\u2019s the therapy. Instead of doing what the rest of Americans are doing, do the opposite. Stop spending and start giving.<\/p>\n<p>Do the opposite this Christmas. Spend less so that you can give more. That\u2019s what God did when He gave us Jesus. That\u2019s what Christmas is all about.<\/p>\n<p><em>(This entry is a reprint from a previous blog I wrote in 2009.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cFor unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given:\u201d\u00a0(Isaiah 9:6 KJV). I started watching the sitcom \u201cSeinfeld\u201d only after it went into syndication. I guess the daily dose of reruns finally got me interested. If you know anything about the show, you know that the character played by Jason Alexander, is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2061,1,2062],"tags":[2069,2015,2185,2095,2035,2202,2203,2182,2070,2052,2186],"location":[],"class_list":["post-2206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-religion","category-uncategorized","category-weblogs","tag-christ","tag-christmas","tag-consumerism","tag-gary-combs","tag-generosity","tag-give","tag-give-more","tag-giving","tag-god","tag-jesus","tag-materialism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5125,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2206\/revisions\/5125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2206"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.garycombs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=2206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}