Maintaining A Positive Influence And Attitude

Keeping the Zing in Life

Maintaining a Positive Influence and Attitude

Philippians 4:4-9

I learned by the example of my father that a negative attitude brings grief to the family. My dad gave rarely carried on a conversation around the house. What he did say was usually negative. At the supper table we would all start supper seated around the table. There was always something wrong with the food – the gravy’s too thick, the meat is too burned. If I happened to put my arm on the table – “wham bam” my dad will hit my arm and say “get your arm off the table.” For many means my mother would leave the table with an upset stomach. My sister often would also excuse herself. I would eat fast and get out of the house.

I vowed that when I had a family I would try to communicate my love. I never heard my dad tell my mother their entire married life “ I love you.” She died at the age of 62 of a stroke and heart disease. My dad was 5 years older than my mother and several years after her death at age of 68 my dad finally came to faith in the Lord and was baptized.

I did my best to make my influence on our four children a positive one. I played tennis with them. We went to the park and I went to hundreds of little league games.

While planting the church in Taylor, Michigan – 1968-1980 I made it a practice to take one of our children out every week to eat at the restaurant of their choice. We started out at McDonalds and Burger King and then Big Boy, Beef Eater and Red Lobster.

Philippians 4:4-8 the Apostle Paul encourages us to

Focus on the Positive Things in Life

Many people have experienced great accomplishments later in life . Vanderbilt constructed most of his railroads after he was 70 years old. Michelangelo sculptured masterfully at eighty-nine. Monet painted his best pictures after he was eighty-five. Harlan Sanders, The Colonel of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame started the business after he was sixty-five. Tennyson was 83 when he penned: “Crossing the Bar.”

Instead of thinking, “I’m over the hill and I can’t do anything,” you can say, “I’m still a person of possibilities and I will try to use them.”

You can practice positive thinking.

1) When you face a problem, ask, “How will I overcome it.”

2) Say “thanks” for happenings in your life. You don’t give thanks for everything that happens to you, but in everything you can give thanks.

3) Start saying “thanks” for little things.

4) Think on the happier side. Gloomites can kill.

5) When you tend to wallow in self-pity, do something good for someone or say some kind word to someone quick.

Do you believe what Browning says in the poem, “Rabbi Ben Ezra?”

Grow old alone with me,

The best is yet to be.

A lady was asked what she thought of Browning’s statement. She said, “I keep five different medical specialists busy. When I think of that statement – maybe Browning overstated it a little. Old age is not for sissies.” When with a twinkle in her eye she said, “I’ll tell you one thing, I’d rather spend these years with a man who said, “Come grow old with me, the best is yet to be; than with some old crotchety old fellow who can only sit by the window and curse his fate.”

There are some people who are so pessimistic they won’t even buy green bananas.

I heard the story about two farmers who often went hunting together. One farmer got a new bird dog. He asked his neighbor if he had seen his new bird dog in the pen behind his farmhouse. The neighbor said yes he had seen the mangy dog and he didn’t think the dog would make a good hunting dog.

The two went duck hunting. They both shot a duck. The pessimistic hunter sent his dog after his duck and the dog swam out and quickly swam back with the duck and laid it as his feet. He said, “See how well trained my dog is, let’s see if your new dog can do as well.” The other father sent his dog after the other duck and the dog walked on the water picked up the duck and walked back on the water much quicker than the other bird dog. The farmer asked; “Well, what do you think of my new bird dog?” Ummmm. “He can’t swim can he?”

When you focus on the positive side of life you make choices to look on the bright side.

#Henry J. Kaiser was building a levee along a riverbank. During the night a great storm came up and flooded the area and buried all his earth-moving machinery and destroyed the work that had been done. When he surveyed the situation he found his workman standing around glumly looking at the mud anda the buried machinery.