I don’t know about you, but life often feels like a mixed bag. One day, everything flows perfectly — like the event I helped with last night. The next, things don’t go quite as smoothly, and that was my experience tonight. I must admit, my first reaction while scrambling to get in control of things, was to focus on the negatives. But as the evening went on, I calmed down a little and realised, while not as smooth as last night, it was still a great event and those who came had a great evening.
We always have a choice. We can choose to focus on the negatives, how we wish it was better, or we can find the positives and celebrate them. There is a passage in Philippians they says ‘Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” And in 1 Thessalonians Paul writes, ‘Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you‘
Which is all very well and good, but then you add other people into the equation! There are some people who spread positivity. And I don’t mean those who are always happy with false smiles at all times, but those who bring a sense of calm, who acknowledge the reality but also find good points. But there are also those who choose to be negative, who will find something to criticise even at the best of times. Most of us are a mixture of these depending on the time of day, or how hungry or tired we are, or some other circumstance. Sometimes others negativity can be contagious, but sometimes positivity can be just as contagious.
The rest of the chapter in Thessalonians talks about how we should encourage one another, building each other up, and how we should hold onto the good. There is a saying, ‘when it rains, looks for rainbows; when it’s dark, look for stars.’ Now, I don’t mean that we should be naively positive – the rest of the letter to the Thessalonians acknowledges struggles and difficulties – but it is good to practice looking for something positive too. This is something I get wrong a lot of the time, but I’d like to get better.
So next time I feel overwhelmed by what went wrong, I want to practice looking for the stars — those small glimpses of grace that remind me God’s light is still there, even in the dark
The Reason for my Hope Blog 