I've found recently that I'm struggling at work with the way children speak to each other and to their elders. There appears to be nothing but hatred and malice in their lives.
I get so angry inside for the way they are and I want to challenge them and change them. But what right do I have? Am I perfect myself? No way! Not by a long way am I any better.
Yes, I do love my God, I do sing praises and worship the God of all creation. But is it having an outward effect on my life? Am I any better than the people I see around me? I don't think so. I'm critical and often condemning. I pass judgement and want punishment for those who misbehave.
Yet one day, I (with everyone else who has ever lived) will face the judgement seat. Being a christian will not save me from judgement! I will be judged according to how I have lived my life in the knowledge that Christ is King over all, in the knowledge that God is an awesome, mighty and holy God! Am I living as though my judgement will come? Is my life an example to others of how to live or am I just judging them? If I really want to change them, I need to follow the example of Jesus and just live my life as an example of how to live in obedience to God. Listening and obeying his word for my life.
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3 comments:
Sue you're absolutely right and you are not alone! It's very easy to focus on negatives (after all there's a whole news industry that rely on peoples desire for bad news - well gossip actually but not many people gossip about how good everything is ;-))
It can also be daunting if we just see ourselves failing to be positive and think we have so far to go and it seems impossible.
James 3:2 (NIV)
We all stumble in many ways.
If anyone is never at fault in what he says,
he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check.
If you take a scale of 0 (us) to 100 (perfection in being positive) then we can only start at 1. The trick is to not be so impressed that we got to 1 that we don't make progress to 2 (or drop back to 0) ;-) We do that by keeping a check on ourselves all the time and not condeming ourselves for slip-ups but renewing our determination to catch the next negative comment (or whatever) before it comes out and replacing it with something else... or nothing at all.
Proverbs 10:19 (NIV)
When words are many, sin is not absent,
but he who holds his tongue is wise.
For example I have often found myself slipping into some of the pet whinges that regularly go around the office. It's just so easy to do. What I try and do to combat this is either stay out of the conversation or if it requires a comment then make it a positive, or at least constructive one.
Also (the thought occurs to me) finding positive things to say when normally nothing would be said is a way of people getting used to hearing positive comments instead of always negative. What goes in has got to come out somewhere. I guess (rather obviously) that also goes for what we take in. We can't hide from negativity but we can try and get as much positivity as possible to counter it.
Proverbs 16:24
Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
Ultimately it's not always easy, but we can get there through the grace of God, without which we would not even get to 1!
hehehe my comment was longer than your post... Sorry for hogging your blog :-D
Thanks Tim
It is often so hard to be positive. We seem to live in such a negative society. But as you suggest, if there is the opportunity to be positive we need to learn to take it.
Sue
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