Give me a Break

Ephesians 4:31-32 (The Message)

^31-32Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you






"Sacrificial attitude is showing the Face of Christ"



My job involves interacting with many people including the 13 people who work for me.



My job is to keep government running. I need to treat people with respect no matter what they do to me.



Many things about my life boil down to the hand I have been dealt. I can't change the fact that I was born in Niagara Falls with certain attributes, IQ, and physical skills. Education and training opened up some doors for me, but they cannot change my past, make me taller and more athletic, or alter the fact that some people are unfair in the way they treat me.

I'm still working on the taller thing!

In spite of the fact that I know that most of my life circumstances are beyond my control, I am still tempted to fret and complain about things that cannot be changed. ...Of course they cause anxiousness. They certainly put me at a disadvantage and must not be allowed to define and limit me.

The people who do best with life move beyond the temptation to whine and feel sorry for themselves. They face the disappointment and move beyond it. They acknowledge the bad break and look for a way to turn it around. They work from a half-full rather than half-empty glass mindset.

These people have a different attitude than the defeatist and whiner. They have found a way to make lemonade from their lemons.

One factor you can control is your attitude!

There is a section in John Baillie's "A Diary of Private Prayer" that
reads:

Teach me, O God, so to use all the circumstances of my life today that they may bring forth in me the fruits of holiness rather than the fruits of sin.
Let me use disappointment as material for patience;
Let me use success as material for thankfulness;
Let me use suspense as material for perseverance;
Let me use danger as material for courage;
Let me use reproach as material for long suffering;
Let me use praise as material for humility;
Let me use pleasures as material for temperance;
Let me use pains as material for endurance.

When my day begins, many things head my way which I have no control. It may be bad weather or someone's bad temper, a deadline that won't budge or people who always know they are right.

The only thing I can control is my attitude towards them

Let my attitude today make all the difference in everything that matters on the Adventure in Middle Grove.