Negative vs. Positive

Two types of voices command your attention today. Negative ones fill your mind with doubt, bitterness, and fear. Positive ones purvey hope and strength. Which one will you choose to heed?  Max Lucado

Did you know that it takes approximately 10 positive statements to counteract a single negative one? If you think back over your life, can you remember the positive things someone said to you or the negative? 

I don’t know about you, but I can vividly remember the times someone said something negative to me or about me.  I can picture in my mind the individual who said it and even where I was at the time it was said.  The positive ones are harder to recall.

So this is what happens.  Someone says something negative to you about the way you do your job, the grades you get in school or the way you drive and it sticks with you like chewing gum on the bottom of your shoe.  That negative statement said to you out of anger from another person can color the rest of your life.

I remember to this day the time a former boss told me I would never amount to anything.  She was angry because I was leaving the position with her company so she wanted to make sure I knew that she thought I was a failure.  Then there were the kids in school who told me I was skinny or just plain inadequate to their way of thinking. 

So if you take the negative things that people say to you and take them to heart, you will eventually believe it. 

I am an observer of people.  I find it interesting to watch how they treat each other.  It happens with kids, parents, siblings, coworkers, bosses and spouses.  I like to watch the eyes because that is where you will read true emotions.  The eyes will tell the story of the pain behind the bravado and putting up a good front. 

One of the greatest lessons I ever learned came later in life.  That lesson is God is the only one I should be concerned about when it comes to what He thinks of me.  He is the most important.  If I know He loves me, then the hurtful things others say about me or to me no longer matter.  The problem comes in when you are younger.  When we are younger we take things to heart.  Children are especially vulnerable because if they are never told of God’s love for them they begin to believe the negative. 

I am guilty of saying negative things to others.  The critical thing about saying negative things to others when we are angry is that we don’t glorify God.  Can you imagine standing before God one day and He looks down at you and says He is disappointed in you because you broke others down instead of lifting them up? There are times when we need to confront others with the negative but it should always be done in love never in anger.       

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, I am guilty of breaking others down with negative comments.  When I do that it doesn’t glorify You and I ask for your forgiveness.  Building others up and showing them Your love should be my first priority.  I am so thankful you didn’t put me in charge because I don’t always do a good job of showing others Your love.

Scripture: Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.  But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection.  And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.  And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.  Colossians 3:12-17