positive

i noticed this post on my facebook wall earlier today: How do you stay so positive. Is it a choice u make or does it just come natural? You inspire me to want to be more positive. Any advice?

and first i wanna say, "whoa! advice? from me? um..."

LOL

you know, i have been thinking about this post all day. i've been wondering is it really a conscious decision? or is that how i'm built? is it learned or innate? and the only answer i have is - it's all God.

i was thinking about me as a child, as a college student, as an adult,.. and i used to get so bothered by how other people treated me (or even how i perceived how others treated me) and i have since been learning that i cannot control how someone reacts to me. but!.. i can control how i respond to them.
just because someone might be ugly to me, that did not render me powerless to be decent back to them.

that actually freed me up a lot from potential hurt and bitterness.

then i realized that i could view things in the 'now' or the 'me' perspective, or i could view it in the perspective of heaven. like if someone treated me ill, i could get upset over how i was, at that very moment, being treated, or i could look at it from an eternal perspective and say "does this make any difference to whether or not i am a child of God?". up to this point in my life, the answer has consistently been no.

that freed me up from the dangers of tunnel vision and gave me a big picture view.

and i started seeing beyond myself. instead of seeing that i was treated in such-and-such a way, i started to realize that people acted that way out of pain or fear or anger or lack of self-esteem. and it became about them and not about me. i was actually able to start to look at someone being ugly to me and feel badly that they were hurting so much that they felt like they had to act like that. i was actually becoming sympathetic to my 'enemies'.

that sure freed me up from self-pity and feeling like i'm a victim.

and then one day i decided that just calling myself a christian wasn't enough. that i wanted to be full out, all in, living every moment of my life and laying it all down for Jesus. i want every decision i make, every word i utter, every progress i make, every foot fall to be in the direction of Jesus - for his name, to his glory, and in his honor. i love him so much that i want everything about me to be for him. i want him to use every bit of me to accomplish whatever he wants through me. i am his. not wishy-washy-parts of me.. all of me!

i find that a decision like that can radicalize one's behavior. when i come to a crossroads, i can get down or bitter or frustrated. or i can see what God wants me to do for Him in it. i want to take the direction he's called me to take even if it's the harder way to take. and when i reach those hardships i want to celebrate that i am doing it for Him and that i didn't cave in and take the easy way just cause it's easy.

and the joy that comes from such a choice, and such a life, is beyond explanation. sometimes i think my heart will explode with all the joy that is stuffed into it. sometimes my soul just sings out to God, it is smitten with him and i am flung into the heavens! what joy, what pure, holy, beautiful, perfect, lasting joy he has in store for us.

so. um.. i guess that means it might be a choice. i try all the time. and i fail a LOT! but i keep trying. because i love him so. and the more i try and the more i sometimes succeed, then the next time it might get just a little easier and a little more natural. it's like a cycle of being a choice and becoming more natural and making the choice easier and making it feel even more natural.

but i think it starts with choice.

no.

actually it starts with God. :)

i don't know if this answers your question. and it's not anything i have down pat. these are things i've learned over my life span and i am still learning them and i will go to my grave still learning. i still have days when i get grouchy because i'm in a long line and i get terrible customer service. but for the most part, the joy of the Lord in me just makes it too hard for me to get down. next to Him, there just isn't much important enough to get upset over.