Today I have not been at work because I sprained my foot running. If you know me, you will know that the first thing I thought when I went down was, "Let me see how bad this is, because I want to finish this run." I don't like to slow down, and I definitely don't like to stop. Needless to say, the verse "be still and know that I am God" is one I'm still working on.
This kind of...let's say "rambunctious"...attitude has turned morose and sour as I've sat on the couch, eating hot Cheetos, listening to emo music and wondering if I will ever live again. While relaxing is not really my forte, internal drama is.
Then, tack this on to the situation: it's hard to explain how the education field does things, but long story short, there is some instability about my job right now. Important decisions are being made today, and I am not there. Sitting with my foot in a bucket of ice water while I think about it just makes it all the more melodramatic.
I will say that I have not been nearly as negative with this sprain as I have been with the last several injuries and illnesses (which only happen every few years or so, fortunately for the people around me). But I have had a bit of a bad attitude about it.
So as I was having a little fun with my bad attitude last night (you know you've done it, too), I decided to read the Psalms. If you want to find lyrics for your next angsty punk song, visit King David. I flipped open randomly, and this is what I read: "Give ear to my prayer, O God; And do not hide Yourself from my supplication. Give heed to me and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and am surely distracted, Because of the voice of the enemy" (Ps. 55:1-3).
I stopped right there because I had underlined that last little verse, and in the margin, I had written, "Don't listen!"
Thanks, Past Christi, for the reminder.
See, all the enemy really has is a voice. But he really likes to use it. As per usual, he takes something of God's and reverses it to be ugly, disgusting, and destructive. God speaks, and things are created. The devil speaks, and things are destroyed.
But only with our cooperation.
What's that saying--"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"? Everyone knows that's not true. But you see, the enemy's power hangs completely on his words, on his ability to convince us that we should be afraid of everything. Kind of like a bully....a big dramatic bully with all the powers of darkness swirling around him. If your life is hid in Christ, there is nothing he can do to destroy it, although occasionally he does make it pretty uncomfortable.
But YOU can actually destroy your life. The enemy just needs to convince you to do it. And he always starts by undermining your identity in Christ with just a few little negative thoughts. He finds the things you're afraid of and then whispers to you about them, disguising them with what looks like an absence of justice or righteousness but is really your own biased judgment over people and situations.
I think the genesis of most of my bad attitudes have been fear that comes from listening to the voice of the enemy.
Not to say there are not other causes of bad attitudes. I may sometimes have a temporary bad attitude because I'm hungry, or it's raining, or something is legitimately irritating. But those fade away. I'm talking about the chronic bad attitudes, the kind that poison your whole perspective. Everyone knows somebody with a chronic bad attitude (or maybe you don't, in which case it is probably you). I've been through periods of life when I had a chronic bad attitude. One example is the attitude I packed up and carried to work with me every day when I lived in Washington DC. I may have sometimes seemed like I had a good attitude on the outside, but inside, I was critical of everything and everyone. The real reason wasn't because other people were stupid. It was because on the inside, I was afraid of failure. This fear was mostly associated with work, but it infected every other part of my life.
I was afraid that I would turn out to be everything I didn't want to be: manipulative, obnoxious, controlling, defective in relationships, too cerebral to connect to others, oblivious, unable to handle new situations, lonely, rejected. I had always been a people pleaser and a high achiever. The enemy had been naming me those things since childhood, but the earthquake of a stressful work environment shook them out in full for the first time. I engaged the enemy's whispers on the subject of my identity, then tried to fight it by blaming everybody else and complaining about the situations where I felt powerless. I made excuses and judged others before they could judge me. As a result, I turned into everything I feared to be. In many ways, I failed, because that's what I expected.
That's what chronic bad attitudes do. They turn you into everything you're afraid to be.
If you listen to the enemy long enough, he doesn't even have to do his job anymore because you are the one repeating his lies, then criticizing everyone else in order to make yourself feel better. It's a pretty efficient system. Before you know it, you are "restless in your complaint" and "surely distracted," and God gets the brunt of your complaining.
Ugly but true.
Some people go through really tough things in their lives, and it's hard not to get a bad attitude in those situations. It can appear that there is a lot to be afraid of. Once you've been hurt, you're afraid to be hurt again.
But all the research by secular science shows that a good attitude means the difference between life and death. People with good attitudes are healthier and live longer. That's what the Bible has been telling us all along:
Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. (Philippians 4:8)
A joyful heart is good medicine, But a broken spirit dries up the bones. (Proverbs 17:22)
Today, in reality, there's really no reason for me to have a bad attitude. My sprained foot will heal. I will still have a job contract, and the Lord has always turned everything negative in my life into something good. (Wait, isn't there a Bible verse about that?)
The cheesy motivational poster in your 5th grade classroom was right. Attitude IS everything. But it's not enough to try to change your attitude without addressing the root cause. As long as he has the upper hand of fear, the thoughts will keep coming. Don't fall for the enemy's bluff. You have no need to fear. All the enemy has is empty words. (And maybe a few emo songs. You can fight it with "The Rainbow Connection." Works for me.)
...we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:14-15)
