A friend once told me, “If the devil wants to take you down, he’ll give you a bad idea. If he wants to take a group of people down, he’ll give you a bad attitude.”
It has always fascinated me how an attitude can completely transform the atmosphere of a room. One of the things I noticed first about my husband was his ability to change the atmosphere of a place simply by having fun and, well to put it simply, being himself. In contrast, I’ve seen the effects of friends shifting an atmosphere in the other direction through self-pity, or pouting, or passive anger – drawing into themselves and forcing their own isolation within a group of people. Humans are so personal and so relational, that it is natural for us to react based on the emotions and attitudes of those around us. We can either be lights, or we can be the draft that snuffs the light from the room.
When Moses descended from Mount Sinai after talking with God, his face shone so brightly that the people of Israel feared to come near him. Moses reflected the glory of the Lord by being in His presence. How much greater then, is it for us as Christians, who not only have the privilege to be in the Lord’s presence, but to have the Spirit of our Lord dwell within us? We all bear that light, but we mask it and dim it down when we bear poor attitudes and sour faces. The hope we have in Christ is pure joy, but how are we to convince others of that when the expression of our face is stating the contrary. Who is going to want what we have to offer if we look ticked off all the time?
Isaiah 49:6 says, “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
It is by this light that we are able to see things clearly, and to have true understanding, and true knowledge.
Wild Joy 