Can I Get A Witness!?!!

I enjoy giving good responses to genuine things happening to others! Good news! Atta’boy’s! Rousing cheers! High Fives! Can I get a witness?

In a world of so much negative, having good news to celebrate is nothing to sneeze at! How do you like to celebrate your good news?

Morning Walk

I took my morning walk inside a local Walmart, pushing a cart, running my fitness app on my watch to keep my steps counted, calories burned and tracked my heartbeat. Actually, I prefer walking in my neighborhood and would really fancy doing it where the mountains and rivers meet. But I had several irons in the fire that could be handled here at one time.

Actually, I prefer walking where there’s not another soul around. If any of my dogs were the right kind for this kind of walk, then I would enjoy them joining me as I strolled along.

Instead. As I pushed my cart and watched the step count increase, I began to pay attention to the people around me. Mainly the workers. Shoppers were few, but the workers were many. Unloading, shifting, rushing too and fro, boxes stacked, and when unloaded they were flattened for reuse at another day and time.

Essentially, everyone was getting the store ready for a weekend. Back to school items were being trimmed, and the oncoming holidays were being staged. Halloween. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Uggghhh!

Listening In

A number of employees were gathered around a display as something was being discussed about location, sales, and who knows what. I heard several speak word and ideas that were positive, and several others were negative. It got me to thinking about their world, and the organized chaos required to run a massive brick and mortar store.

As I thought it through, I realized something. There seemed to be an undergirding structure to their rat race. They knew what they were doing, and they did not seem to be stressed over their duties. There were thousands of stores going through the very same kind of experience all around the world! In fact, most of their morning rah-rah meetings gear them up for their successes over failures. They learn from each other. Instead of thinking negative, their attitudes were expressing positive.

Positive Reinforcement

Go to any of your favorite big box stores when they are gearing up for the day and having their staff meetings in public view. Someone always asks if they can help you, the customer, and they genuinely want to assist you, but their focus is on the purpose of the meeting. Rewards are handed out, cheers are led, hand claps for the good reports, and though it may seem like a scouting meeting from my younger days, everyone seemed to appreciate the positive reinforcements from management.

Side Note:
This makes me wonder
what those management meetings
behind closed doors are like!

In any conversation, for any purpose you can imagine, someone always has a negative viewpoint. It’s easy for me to be like that until it’s my rah-rah meeting and then I insist on having the positive news.

Still, there’s something about some people that they always seem to spout the negative and never see the positive.

What gives? Maybe it’s genetic, nature or even the nurturing spirit given to them, processed internally and re-distributed. Again. And Again.

Negative Reinforcements

It’s easy to be negative. The cost of something or even the time out of your precious schedule keeps you thinking “No!” instead of, “Well, maybe that will be okay!”

Turn on any news or talk show and the negativity flows in abundance. Listen to it enough and you pick up their vibe and recite their perspective. Negative energy thrives and aims to destroy the positive. Like a magnet, it overwhelms your weaker positive position and focuses on minimizing your effect.

Think about Edison for a moment. After thousands of attempts to create a lightbulb, he could choose to be negative about the failures and what didn’t work. Rather:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
~Thomas A. Edison

It’s something about the attitude of the moment. Negativity has a way of breeding negativity. If we look at the negative in a positive light, then maybe there’s a better way to persevere and push through.

Positive Sandwich

Chatting with my daughter recently, she reflected on a view she has about positives and negatives. She likes to treat the negatives to a “positive sandwich”. Instead of spouting the negative, she likes to wrap it with positive statements and thoughts. If someone wants her to do something, and it’s impossible for her to drop what she’s doing to handle their request, then she may approach it like this:

“I understand you have a task for me to do that is pretty important to you. However, my plate is full with deadlines I must meet simultaneously as your request. I’m sorry. I cannot do both. Let me know what you are looking for and I will help you find someone else on my team who can meet your need.”

Did you catch the positives wrapped around the negative? I can’t do it. But I know it’s important to you, so let me help you find someone else.

Here my thought today.

Negatives abound and can wipe out the positive moments you are experiencing. Instead of spouting negatives, how about we approach our need or ideas from a positive position?

The bible is full of examples of how to deal with the negatives that abound. But I want to approach it from another direction. I don’t want to deal with the negatives. I want to present the positives.

How Do I Stay Positive?

This should be an easy answer, but when you consider the times we live in and the negativity that surrounds us, it’s easy to become negative. Jesus even teaches us this.

And because lawlessness will abound,
the love of many will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
(Matthew 24:12-13 NKJV)

The natural byproduct of lawlessness and iniquity (KJV), is that the love many have for God will grow cold. Grow Cold? Think about it from a word picture.

How do you cool off your food or drink? You blow on it. You keep breathing in and blowing out, and eventually, you cool it down enough to enjoy. The action of blowing will cool it faster than simply letting it cool on its own.

Jump to the obverse thought. How do you keep your food or drink hot? By keeping it close to a heat source. Jesus tells us to “endure” and from my viewpoint, it means I stretch myself to stay close to the spiritual source of my being. It’s not by letting myself be affected by the negativity that’s blowing all around, rather, it’s by getting closer to the source of the fire that will keep me grounded till the end.

Let me give you three positive steps that can help you stay positive in this negative world we live in.

Positive Step #1 – Your Actions Speak Louder Than Words

The Apostle Paul tells us to be “filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in our heart, giving thanks always in all things in the name of Jesus.” (Ephesians 5:18-20)

In other words, your actions keep the positive life flowing!

This may be easier than you think! Being filled with the Spirit is equal to being “full of the spirit”! Your actions build up others, as well as keeps you spiritually close to that source of life!

It’s like walking into a place that has the smells you love so much. Immediately, someone thought about a bakery, a smokehouse, or a favorite place that fills your heart with the memories of another time.

For me? It’s coffee roasting. It takes me back to Navigation Blvd in Houston where that big-name coffee roaster let the smells overwhelm all the other smells of the Ship Channel. To this day, I will follow my nose to a coffee roaster, and will bask in that favorite smell! Perfumes, air fresheners, and even candles – Be Gone! Let’s roast a batch of coffee!

Here’s the key result of this. What you enjoy and bask in, you carry forth. That savor lingers in your clothes and on your body. Do you get it? Enjoy corporate and personal time do what Paul teaches, and you will carry it forth everywhere you go!

Positive Step #2 – Your Attitude Says It All

James writes in his only epistle we know of:

But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.
(James 3:8-10 NKJV)

I’m not an opponent of filling my ears with those vulgar 4-letter words that are quietly making their way into the mainstream. Well. There are more letters at play than just the 4 strung out to sound vile, but, you know what I mean.

One step is to understand the attitude of the words! It’s more about the attitude behind the words, hence, any word or phrase can be a cursing even if the words are acceptable in God’s House! It’s the spirit behind the words, more than the words themselves. Cursing, according to the original language quoted above, it the “evil spoken with words”, the “doom we declare with our words”, or even the expression of these words in a tone that will demean and belittle someone.

Jesus said we are to “Bless those that Curse us” (Luke 6:28), but we limit that thought to those 4-letter words! Let’s quit the negative speak and start by being positive! One step of becoming positive is to start blessing those who curse or doom us to failure!

Positive Step #3 – Learn How To Forgive

You can create many steps, but the last one I want to share is this, and it may be the most difficult one to accomplish because it takes a lot of action within, as well as without.

Forgiving. You must learn to forgive just as God has forgiven you. (Matthew 6:14-15 , Colossians 3:12-13) In fact, Jesus teaches that if you cannot forgive, then neither can he forgive you! What you can do is reciprocated by what He will do!

I got to thinking this through. Remember when Jesus was on the cross and he cried out: Father! Forgive them! They do not know what they do! (Luke 23:34) He was confirming his teaching from Matthew. Jesus was confirming what he taught! I do not have the privilege of treating others differently, as I have already taught how they are to do better!

You may struggle to forget (Philippians 3:13), and we all deal with this. I have learned through the years that my passionate memory of something fades with time.

That’s key! Sometimes our forgetter needs time to forget! As long as I do not keep rehashing and reliving it, like a photo left in the sun too long, that image will simply fade away. Your ability to recall the specifics will dissipate.

Let Me Close This Thought

For those of you who are a little older, you may remember the testimony services in the church from a long time ago. Everyone was given an opportunity to stand and testify! You know! Give a witness of what God’s done for you!

The reality? Too much information, filled with too many negatives, and that long-winded person never seemed to know when to simply hush up and sit down! Too often it dampened the church service.

But every so often, someone had a really good testimony that fired everyone up! You can imagine their thoughts, and equally, hear their shouts of affirmations! This is the “Good News” we should all want to share! Something negative happened, but in a positive light, I want to share with you the victory! This was Good news! Where’s my Atta’boy’s! Who will give a Rousing cheer with me? Hey! High Five!

Can I get a witness?