How’s your attitude barometer? Do you ever feel beat down by the news surrounding you? Are your friends sharing more and more about illnesses and troubles with you? Do you sometimes just want to sit in a dark room and cry? It is hard to have a positive attitude when negativity swirls around you. Yet, God says that we can – and he offers models and instructions to help us do it! It is time to smile again!
Key Principle: Because life is filled with negative people and situations does not mean the believer should be negative. Even in the garden with weeds, I farm in my Gracious Father’s field!
- Your attitude is the tint you apply to the windshield of your life. You see through it according to the tint – and respond to what you see.
- There is very little that distinguishes one person from another that is not easily changed – hair color, shape, dress. The one thing that can make the person stand out is there attitude!
- Attitude is one of the smallest differences with the biggest impact on people.
- Attitude is perhaps the most important governing factor to how someone handles adversity!
Seven Rules to Keep Your Attitude UP!
Rule #1: You are in God’s hand! See it in the perspective of God’s Control. Note: “The Lord gave” (1:1-2). In the year 605 the capital city of my people was besieged (1:1) and we lost the battle (1:2a). My king was taken into captivity (1:2).
Life is out of our control. A man who battled cancer for two years testified: “The things that matter the most to us in life are the things we control the very least.” Someone else said: “Life is meant to bring us a succession of experiences to show us our need of Christ.” The object of Daniel’s faith was the always present, powerful, knowing, and changeless God.
Rule #2: Collect the knowledge you need to navigate. You will get along better if you understand the situation well and comprehend the actual conditions you are under and what you are expected to do (1:3-7). Assume that EVERY PERSON can teach you something and you can learn important information in EVERY SITUATION!
Your identity isn’t found in your outward symbols – church, dress, name…The truth is inside you! They cannot take that away from you. Look at the names of them men that were changed in Daniel 1:6 “Daniel – (God is my judge), Hananiah, (the Lord has been gracious), Mishael, (The one who comes form God), and Azariah (The Lord is my helper). The chief official gave them Babylonian names: to Daniel, Belteshazzar (the secret of their God Bel), to Hananiah, Shadrach (“the inspiration of the sun god”, To Mishael, Meshach (he who belongs to the goddess Sheshach.) and to Azariah, Abednego (servant of Nego – the morning star). They could have changed characters with the change of their names, but they understood they were still the same men. Dress up a duck and it is still a duck!
“Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats“. ~Voltaire
Rule #3: Try to work in the system. Make up your mind that you will stand for God with a positive voice as He enables you and then attempt to work in the system to accomplish the task (1:8).
It’s so hard when I have to, and so easy when I want to. ~Annie Gottlier
If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. ~Mary Engelbreit
The Missionary Hudson Taylor demonstrated faith and inner calm in a challenging situation in 1853, when young Hudson Taylor was making his first voyage to China. His ship was delayed near New Guinea because the winds had stopped. A rapid current was carrying the ship toward some reefs and the situation was becoming dangerous. Even the sailors using a longboat could not row the vessel out of the current. “We have done everything that can be done,” said the captain to Taylor . But Taylor replied, “No, there is one thing we have not done yet.” There were three other believers on the ship, and Taylor suggested that each retire to his own cabin and pray for a breeze. They did, and while he was at prayer, Taylor received confidence from God that the desperately needed wind would be sent. He went up on deck and suggested to the first officer, an unbeliever, that he let down the mainsail because a breeze was on its way. The man refused, but then they saw the corner of the sail begin to stir. The breeze had come! They let down the sail and in a short time were on their way!
Rule #4: Don’t get self centered. When you have success, remember it is God who gave it to you. (1:9).
After a forest fire in Yellowstone National Park, forest rangers began their trek-up a mountain to assess the inferno’s damage. One ranger found a bird literally petrified in ashes, perched statuesquely on the ground at the base of a tree. Somewhat sickened by the eerie sight, he knocked over the bird with a stick. When he struck it, three tiny chicks scurried from under their dead mother’s wings. God will take you through the fire under His wings. (sermon central illustrations – unattributed).
Rule #5: Be sympathetic to the other side without giving in on truth. Listen with understanding to the fears of the ungodly (1:10). Meet them half way if there is something you can do with that (1:11-16)
Rule #6: Choose time with positive people and doing positive things. People that are engaged in growth and life are invigorating and get better opportunities to be used of God (1:17-19).Keep people, words and activities that help you stay up in your sight!
- Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life’s Little Instruction Book
- Whenever you fall, pick something up. ~Oswald Avery
Rule #7: Work out your giftedness and stay at your post for God (1:20-21). Daniel was taken in 606, but stayed in the work until 537 – nearly 70 years later!
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose – a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. ~Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818
Because life is filled with negative people and situations does not mean the believer should be negative.
Life is great. Don’t let circumstances and society fool you into believing it’s not. ~Adabella Radici
