The Life Of Jonah

Illus: There used to be a song that some churches in the South liked to sing called, “I woke up this morning feeling fine! I woke up with heaven on my mind.” But I have a confession, sometimes I wake up and I am not feeling fine, and I certainly do not have heaven on my mind.

Generally, when we wake up like this we have an attitude problem.

Illus: One man’s wife seemed to have a lot of “bad attitude” days in her life, and he bought her a mood ring to monitor the mood she was in day by day.

A friend asked him if it worked. He said it did! He said that –

• When she is in a good mood it turns green

• When she is in a semi-good mood it turns yellow

• When she is in a bad mood it leaves a big red mark on my forehead

Illus: Husbands can all be thankful that a list of things has been compiled so that we can tell when our wife is in a bad mood. When we see these changes in her life we better be ready for a hard day.

• When she stops reading Glamour magazine and starts reading Guns and Ammo magazine, we know we are in for a bad day

• When she considers chocolate a major FDA food group we know we are in for a bad day

• When she's developed a new talent for spinning her head around in 360 degree circles we know we are in for a bad day

• When she retains more water than Lake Superior we know we are in for a bad day.

• When she denies she's in a bad mood as she pops a clip into her semiautomatic, we know we are in for a bad day

• When she buys us a new T-shirt -- with a bulls-eye on the front, we know we are in for a bad day

• When you ask her to please pass the salt at the dinner table and she says, "All I ever do is give, give, give! AM I SUPPOSED TO DO EVERYTHING?", you know you are in for a bad day

• When she orders 3 Big Macs, 4 large fries, a bucket of Chicken McNuggets, and then throws a hammer-lock on the manager because they're out of Diet Coke, we know we are in for a bad day.

We all have GOOD and BAD days.

• Have you noticed that good attitudes are contagious? For example, you can go into a place whistling and smiling and soon others will be doing the same.

• But have you also noticed that bad attitudes are contagious? You can go into a place griping and bellyaching and soon others will be doing the same.

We try to avoid the people with bad attitudes.

• We have to make allowances for some who occasionally have a bad day. The reason we have to make allowances for them is because if we do not, we will not have any friends!

• But listen, it seems that some have a bad attitude 365 days a year.

The best thing we can do with people like this is to keep as much distance as we can between us and them, because they have a rotten attitude about everything.

Illus: They remind me of some children that decided they were going to play tricks on their Grandpa when he took a nap. When he was asleep, the kids decided to put Limburger cheese in his mustache. Quite soon he awoke sniffing.

• He said “Why, this room stinks!”

• He went into the kitchen and he said, “This room stinks!” He decided to go outside on the front porch to get some fresh air.

• Much to Grandpa’s surprise, the open air brought no relief, and he proclaimed, “The whole world stinks!”

There are folks like this. They are convinced that, “The whole world stinks!” They don’t have anything good to say about anyone or anything. The best thing we can do with people like this is STAY AWAY FROM THEM! WHY? Because WE BECOME LIKE THOSE WE ASSOCIATE WITH.

Illus: A man that had a very bad attitude about his work decided he was going to quit his job and find another one. He went into the office and gave them his two weeks notice. But he was surprised because when he gave his two weeks notice, they told him they would pay him for two weeks, but they wanted him to go back to his desk, pack up his belongings and leave immediately.

DO YOU KNOW WHY THEY WANTED HIM TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY?

Because if he was allowed to stay two more weeks, he would have complained and bellyached the whole two weeks. The company decided it would be best to pay him for the two weeks and get him out of the company as fast as they could. A BAD ATTITUDE AFFECTS EVERYONE!