Raining in Attitude

" Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky." The apostle Paul speaks these words in the second chapter of his letter to the Philippians
and is really challenging we believers to take what ever life gives and not to complain about it. Complaining is an outward sign of an inward dissatisfaction, it stems from our wills being in conflict with the situations that we are facing or the lack of control of the things in the world around us, aye there lies the "rub." You see Paul is spot on in that he views his ciricumstances as opportunity and not affliction and says that it is not the situation that needs adjusting it is our attitude in the situation that needs to adjust. Paul the chief jail-bird of the Bible says that circumstances are opportunity, so instead of Paul getting his tin cup and rattling the bars of his cell yelling that he was framed, he sees his jail as new field to harvest, a new area to spread the Gospel. Paul exhorts us to be pure or undefiled by staying away from the poisons of arguing and grumbling, things that stifle and kill abundant life, things that rob us of the life that we could be living now. "Attitude is everything" as Chuck Swindoll would say, I know that my title has a incorrect word usage but I chose it as a play on words in that our attitudes are often affected by things that we have little or no control over things like the weather or planes that are late, things that we allow to ruin the day and our attitude. Instead Paul says that if you check your bad attitude at the door you will truly shine, you will be set a part from the complainers and truly be attractve to those you serve because of the light that you bring. So we can chose to reign in our attitude then the rain won't reign us in, allowing us to make the most of opportunities, so if it's 50 degrees and raining or 100 degrees and dry, use the circumstances as an opportunity to shine in a world that desperately needs light.

Hoping all Your Heart Beats are Irish
patrick