Are you a little 'unstable'?

"The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it." (William James) It was Mr. James who also reminded us that one can alter our life by altering our attitude. Attitude can range from pretty positive to absolutely negative and everything in between. We can be consistent until our attitude gets a little tweaked over something and then we just let things go awry. We can commit when we are soaring high, but as soon as things get tough, our attitude toward our commitments can turn pretty negative. Amazingly, attitude can determine what we spend our time doing - what we invest ourselves in the most. If we are use our life well, we are to spend it on something that will yield good results and our attitude can go a long, long way in helping us to realize that goal.

Don’t brashly announce what you’re going to do tomorrow; you don’t know the first thing about tomorrow. (Proverbs 27:1)

Maybe we have been going through life thinking we will always have a tomorrow, then when things hit us that we didn't expect, it throws our plans all out of whack. We get a negative attitude because OUR plans were interrupted - interference is most commonly viewed as 'negative' and sometimes even crippling. If we rely upon our feelings to determine our attitude for each day, we will be sorely defeated in a very short amount of time. As we have discussed many times, feelings are a bit too 'fickle' to rely upon. Our attitude is likely to change, especially due to caprice, irresolution, or instability; it becomes casually changeable - where our attitude goes, so go we!

How is it we can maintain the right attitude, so we aren't so easily swayed by the instability of our emotions? I think the easiest answer to this is to be consistently in God's Word and to allow his Holy Spirit to guide us into the understanding of that Word. When we allow the Word of God to begin to guide our lives rather than the emotion of the moment, we might just realize a more 'stable' attitude. Why do we struggle with taking God's Word into our lives? It is likely that we haven't really asked God to open it up to us - to reveal himself to us through his Word. As I walk each morning, I ask God to reveal his plan for my day - I have one, but I want to be sure I am within his as I pursue the passing hours. As I sit to study each morning, I ask for guidance to the passage that will speak into my life - I can read volumes from scripture and still feel as though I received nothing from it. 

It isn't the volumes we consume as much as the frame of mind we assume. When we humble ourselves to sit at his feet, listen to his voice, and hear his Word spoken to us, we begin to see our attitude is affected. Maybe not totally at first, but the more we settle into this place of meeting with him in consistency, the more we begin to see the peace of God settle our unstable emotions. Our feelings become less and less likely to guide our steps, and our attitude is less 'labile'. As the Holy Spirit begins to place little checks and balances in our lives, we must heed them. As we do, we find our plans align more and more closely with God's. That in and of itself is enough to bring the greatest attitude adjustment we could ever want. Just sayin!