The Importance Of A Good Attitude

The Importance of a Good Attitude

Let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. Colossians 3:15

In any situation, a good attitude is a must. After all, a good attitude can brighten not only our own day but the day of those around us. Whenever I mention the word attitude, I always think of an experience my friend Lanson Ross had in his adolescence.

Lanson said his mother was not the best cook in the world. As proof of that, every morning she made the same thing for breakfast: oatmeal. She boiled the water, threw in the oats, threw in the salt, and then never stirred it. So when Lanson went downstairs to breakfast, he didn’t know if he was going to get the top part that was all raw, the side part that was all salt, or the bottom part that was all burned. He just knew he was going to get a bowl of bad oatmeal.

One morning Lanson was particularly hungry and particularly irritated, knowing what was waiting downstairs. And this was before the days of being able to stop at the fast-food place on the corner and get a sausage biscuit. If you were a growing boy and hungry, you ate what was waiting downstairs.

Lanson shared a room with his younger brother, who was one of those cheerful morning guys. You know the type: one who tap-dances and whistles while he’s buttoning his shirt. Normally Lanson ignored him, but on this particular morning, he was hungry and irritated.

So he turned to his brother and snarled, “How can you be so cheerful every morning? Don’t you know we’re going downstairs to the same bad oatmeal?”

His brother turned to him in surprise. “Oh, no, Lanson,” he said. “It’s never the same. You don’t know if you’re going to get the raw part or the salty part or the burned part. But it’s never the same.”

The same situation, but two different responses. At one time or another, life will hand all of us repeated bowls of bad oatmeal. And our attitude will make a big difference in how we face those situations. It may even make a difference in the outcome. —SANDRA

Lord, help me to have a good attitude toward daily challenges and major disappointments. Help me to remember that while I don’t have to like what happens, I can trust you to be at work. And I can trust you to bring your good out of any situation I relinquish to you.

Sometimes relinquishment means giving up a cherished dream, a plan, an illusion. Life is often a series of adjustments fitting our dreams to reality.

—RUTH SENTER, BIBLE TEACHER, CONFERENCE SPEAKER, AND AUTHOR