Fix Your Attitude

Day Eight, Step 3: Fix Your Attitude

January 8, 2016

[Paul says,] "Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!"

(Romans 15:13 MSG)

Light-seeds are planted in the souls of God’s people,
Joy-seeds are planted in good heart-soil. 

(Psalm 97:11 MSG)

Enter with the password: “Thank you!”
    Make yourselves at home, talking praise.
    Thank him. Worship him. 

(Psalm 100:4 MSG)

He forgives your sins—every one.
    He heals your diseases—every one.
    He redeems you from hell—saves your life!
    He crowns you with love and mercy—a paradise crown.
    He wraps you in goodness—beauty eternal.
    He renews your youth—you’re always young in his presence. 

(Psalm 103:3-5 MSG)

Dead people can’t praise God—
    not a word to be heard from those buried in the ground.
But we bless God, oh yes—
    we bless hi mnow, we bless him always!

Hallelujah! 

(Psalm 115:17-18 MSG)

[Paul says,] "We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul—not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us. 

(Colossians 1:11-13 MSG)

[Jesus says,] “I’m telling you the most solemn and sober truth now: Whoever believes in me has real life, eternal life. I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever. I am the Bread—living Bread!—who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live—and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self.” 

(John 6:48-51) MSG)

[Paul reminds us,] "We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment."  (Colossians 1:15-17 MSG)

I was not sure where all this "attitude" stuff was going. All these verses addressing attitudes, God was working ahead of my needs. At least until this afternoon. Suddenly my filters were gone. The words in my brain came blasting out of my mouth. 

"I don’t want to do this. I handled all our budgeting in envelopes the first ten years we were married – I handed it over with no transition – what a mistake – that was really stupid. We’ve done Larry Burkett’s system – twice. It didn’t take. And here I am holding the pencil – again. I don't want to do this again!”

I will let you put the emphasis on the words. I think you know where they go.

Our son-in-law, who needed to hurry to get to a meeting, tucked his chin. Our daughter, who came from the Oncology Infusion Center, sudennly got eyes as big as saucers. My husband bit his tongue. He became rigid from head to toe.

For Christmas our children gave us the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University DVD Home Study Kit and promised to walk through the study with us. Bill already started making spreadsheets. He already shared a gruesome picture of $80,000 of debt accumulated over nearly 47 years of marriage. 

We are still tithing, because we made that decision a l-o-n-g time ago – we’ve never not had enough to make, well, at least the minimum payments. We’ve given a leg up over and over. We are givers not savers. We use credit cards like cash. It’s not Bill’s fault. It’s our fault. To paraphrase Dave Ramsey, somewhere along the line we kept getting chocolate cake when we wanted vanilla because we never committed together to change the recipe.

Will someone please send me to my room and tell me I can come back to the living room when I have a better attitude? 

I’ve apologized for my outburst, but that doesn’t fix the issue or my attitude. I had a lot of trouble going to sleep, even after I talked with Bill and we agreed to him working from the computer and Jorja working on paper and then sitting down together. He finds paper tiresome, and I can’t see the big picture on the computer.

That’s a start. But it is not the last conversation. It is probably not the last outburst. This is stressful. It is not easy. We got in this mess together. We can get out. But to do so we have to work together. 

These scriptures need to be in the front of my notebook. They need to be read and acted on every day over the however long it will take us to put our house in order. In spite of bitter winter pain. In spite of the heebie-jeebies anxiety brings on a moment's notice. In spite of the seasonal downward spiral into the deep black hole of depression. Yes there is help for all of that. Hopefully the combination of:

• God’s holy word buried in my heart and written on my tongue,\Western medicine’s pile of pills for pain management, 
• A yoga tape from follower of the Dali Lama who is my primary care physician,
• Exercises from the physical therapist to reconfigure the disks in my spine from top to bottom, 
• Walking every day outside, inside, or in the pool, 
• Sharing this at next week’s behavioral therapy session with my psychologist, 
• Perhaps seeing the psychiatrist to add an antidepressant to my antianxiety medication, 
• Asking you to pray for me.

Do you need to fix your attitude, too? How can I pray for you?

Revised Book of Common Prayer, Daily Readings, 2016

The Message (MSG) Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

Financial Peace University DVD Home Study Kit Copyright © 2014 by Dave Ramsey