I don’t know about you, but I badly need an Attitude Adjustment.
Everything just seems to be screwed up, from the state of the World in general, to the deep divisions within our country, to I can’t clean my car’s windshield at our Shell station anymore because someone always steals their bucket and squeegee, so they don’t even put them out.
My old friends are turning out to be just that, and they’re getting sick and even dying.
Incompetence and inattention to detail appear to be the new norms for service. The List goes on. And on.
And here I am whining! That’s terrible.
I’m sure you have your List. Get it out, and let’s work on this together.
As I look at my List of Complaints, that small voice of Truth reminds me of the answer: Don’t just keep looking around at the mess. First, look up. Only then look around, and when you do, look for the opportunity to do something for others.
Of course the main driver of my attitude should be my faith. But before going there, consider this simple fact: America makes up about 4% of the
world’s population. That means, given where and how I live, that in purely materialistic terms, I probably land in the top 2% or 3% of all the people on Earth. I did absolutely nothing to wind up in this privileged place—it was given to me. What am I doing with it?
And, lest I forget, I’m living now, not a thousand years ago, or even a hundred years ago, when a toothache or kidney stone still meant devastating pain, and you could die from an infected blister on your foot, because penicillin had not yet been invented.
So…Pray that He will help Adjust that Attitude, and then Pray some more.
I started by re-reading a post I wrote almost four years ago about the Thin Threads in my life. https://parkerhudson.com/2022/08/thin-threads/. I’m lucky to have it, and if you haven’t made a similar inventory of the seemingly small decisions in your life that have, looking back, made a huge difference, I recommend doing so. It’s a great first step towards adjusting Attitude.
Now, here’s the main thing. I’ve been saved by God’s gift of grace through Jesus’ death and resurrection, and I’ll spend eternity with Him in Heaven. Eternity. With Him, and with all the other Believers from across the millennia. Hello? And I have a troubled Attitude?
I also have to think about how I came to my faith. Not a straight path. Some of you may have been Believers for as long as you can remember. That was not my case. I grew up attending an Episcopal Church with my parents—I was an acolyte who could pick up anywhere in the Liturgy and keep going by memory. And I attended a Christian high school requiring a couple of years of Bible Study. So I knew a lot about God. But He had little to do with my everyday life. In fact, just the opposite.
Was that you? How did you come to your faith? Is there a Thin Thread or two in your story of God’s grace that should impact your Attitude?
One of the several Thin Threads in my life on that subject is that while we still lived in Charleston in the early 80’s, Bishop Fitz Allison of South Carolina (who himself tells of becoming a Christian one Sunday while sitting in his bishop’s robes listening to another pastor’s sermon), appointed a young pastor, Renny Scott, to lead staid, old St. Philip’s Church in downtown Charleston.
Renny was only there a few years, but when he preached, for the first time in my life (that I can recall) I heard an Episcopal priest tell me that it wasn’t my church attendance or other good deeds that were going to open eternity with God for me; but, rather, my personal acceptance of faith in His Son, the Savior I so desperately needed, and then making Him the Lord of my life. That novel message led me to attend Cursillo with my wife in 1984, as recounted in that earlier Thin Threads post.
What if Renny had not come to St. Philips, so that our lives never crossed for that brief moment in time? Where would I be? And my wife and children? I can’t bear to think.
So, after looking up and remembering that God is actually very much in charge of all of this seeming chaos, as personally witnessed by the events of my own life, I must look around—not at my situation, but at others. For whom can God use me to be the Renny Scott in their lives?
As Ken Boa teaches, the only two things that will last eternally are God’s Word and the souls of people. So we should all invest our resources—no matter how precious they now seem, they will all one day be ashes—so that others who will live forever can spend eternity with God.
Whom can I tell? Whom can I serve? How can I help?
Lord, help me get out of my issues and focus on someone in need.
These truths have in fact changed my Attitude. There are still problems of course, from the world to the Shell station, but I actually feel more empowered to tackle them now. Having a positive, healthy attitude toward my temporary life in this second birth canal doesn’t mean that I stop working on this world’s issues.
Who knows what God might accomplish using the gifts He’s given me, through my actions, if I listen to Him and always seek His truth? A quick follow-up: Do I even know what gifts He’s given me, so that He can use me most effectively? Three clues: 1) What do I enjoy doing? 2) If He wants me to be a carpenter, He gave me a hammer, not a wrench. If my gift is a wrench, I should look further into plumbing, and 3) What do other people, particularly Believers, tell me that I’m good at?
A final corollary: What has my Attitude done to my spouse? What by God’s design has this most important person been trying to help me understand, and how have I reacted? There may be an immediate need for attention, not Attitude, very close to home.
Remember C.S. Lewis’ wisdom in Mere Christianity: “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one.”
I end here as I often do: “Pray like it depends on God, because it does. And work like it depends on you, because it does.”
For an additional insight or two, here are some earlier posts on related subjects: Thanksgiving for Christmas (about Gratitude), and
Written In Stones
Engage, Don’t Demonize
The Common Sense Vote
Reason and Science Prolong Life, Except for Abortion
Blessings.
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