by Joyce Meyer
I believe that more than any other thing, our attitude is what determines the kind of life we are going to have. It’s especially important to maintain a positive attitude because God is positive. And when we are positive, it releases Him to work in our lives.
Being positive was an area of my life that God really had to help me with. Many years ago I was an extremely negative person. So many devastating things had happened to me that I was afraid to believe anything good could ever happen. As a result, my whole philosophy was, “If you don’t expect anything good to happen, then you won’t be disappointed when it doesn’t.” Since my thoughts were all negative, so were my words; therefore, so was my life.
When I really began to study the Word and trust God to restore me, one of the first things He showed me was that the negativism had to go. In fact, the longer I serve God, the more I realize the tremendous power there is in being positive in both our thoughts and words. I believe when we maintain a positive attitude, God makes even the things the enemy means for our harm to work out for good—and not only for our good, but also for the good of many other people. My own life is a perfect example.
The enemy’s plan was to use the years of abuse I suffered to destroy me. If I had chosen to continue responding to my circumstances with a negative attitude of anger and bitterness, he would have succeeded. But instead I chose to be positive and believe that God’s plan to heal and restore me would come to pass. It did, and now He is helping millions of people through my testimony! Having a positive attitude not only takes the limits off what God can do in and through us, it also helps us see our circumstances from God’s perspective and enables us to enjoy our everyday lives.
A Positive Attitude Takes the Limits Off
You and I always have a choice about what our attitude will be toward the life we live. When we decide to react to our circumstances with a negative attitude—such as self-pity, resentment or bitterness—it hinders God from doing everything He wants to do in our lives and keeps us from reaching our full potential.
It’s true that some of us may have to work harder than others to keep a positive attitude. For instance, I used to be the type of person who could walk into a newly decorated room and when someone would ask, “How do you like my decorations?” I would say, “Well, they look nice, but you’ve got a piece of wallpaper loose up there in the corner.” I always saw what was wrong. I had to work a lot harder at having a positive attitude than some people like my husband, Dave, who just naturally has a more positive attitude than me.
The problem was that having a negative attitude did not make me or the people around me very happy. Proverbs 23:7 says, …as [a man] thinks in his heart, so is he…. Therefore, if I was a negative person, it was because my thoughts were negative. So I decided that if I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life being negative and unhappy, I’d have to think positively, even if things around me looked negative.
Remember the twelve men Moses sent as spies into the land of Canaan? Ten came back with a negative report and two—Joshua and Caleb—had a positive report. The ten with the negative report told Moses and the rest of the people about the fortified cities and the big, strong giants that lived there. They said, …We are not able to go up against the people [of Canaan], for they are stronger than we are (Numbers 13:31).
The effect of the negative words of those ten men was amazing. Based on their negative report, the entire nation of Israel refused to go into the land, thereby forfeiting God’s promises to them! In the same way, a negative attitude can keep you from realizing the promises of God for your life because it keeps you from moving forward in faith. The only two people out of that whole generation who ever saw the Promised Land were the two spies who gave a positive report, Joshua and Caleb. After seeing the same thing that the other ten spies saw, they said, …Let us go up at once and possess it; we are well able to conquer it (Numbers 13:30). These two men had a different perspective.
A Positive Attitude Gives Us Right Perspective
A positive attitude is a result of focusing on the right thing—God. When we focus on the problem instead of on God, we miss His perspective of our situation. In Numbers 13:33, the ten spies who gave the negative report said, There we saw the Nephilim [or giants], the sons of Anak, who come from the giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. These men were looking at the giants and at themselves—they were not looking at God. How does God want us to respond to difficult circumstances? He does not want us to ignore them or deny their existence. He just wants us to acknowledge that He is greater than our circumstances and deny their right to control us. Maintaining a positive attitude is one of the most powerful ways that we can do that, because it’s not our circumstances that make us miserable—it’s our attitude toward them. No matter what sort of giants we may be facing, the truth is, …He Who lives in [us] is greater (mightier) than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).
A Positive Attitude Helps Us Enjoy Everyday Life
I remember how differently Dave and I would deal with problems in the early years of our marriage. Dave would just go on and do what he normally did—enjoy his life and trust God to take care of it. I, on the other hand, would be worried, frustrated and upset for days on end. In some cases when we were dealing with things concerning our children, I may have been upset for years!
Eventually, we would get an answer, the problem would be taken care of, and I would have wasted a lot of time being upset. Like Dave, I learned to choose a positive faith-filled attitude and began trusting God instead of worrying all the time. When we keep our eyes on God instead of the “giants” in our lives, things take on a whole new perspective, and we can enjoy our lives while we positively trust Him to take care of our circumstances.
Whatever you may be dealing with, I want to encourage you to ask God for grace to maintain a positive attitude all the way through. It will not only help you maintain God’s perspective and enjoy your life, but it will also make you a blessing to everyone around you. If you let Him, God will use even your problems to create a testimony of His power and goodness.
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