For This Reason 50

[HKHaugan]

A few years back while we were in Colorado skiing we went out for dinner at a typical ski resort restaurant with its wooden tables, crowded bar, TV’s blaring, loud laughter and the latest slope war stories. We looked at our menus and I noticed they had an item called jerk chicken. When the waitress came over to take our order I told her with a tongue in cheek smile that while I wanted the chicken dinner, I certainly didn't want a chicken that was a jerk. She immediately and humorously responded, “Oh, you mean chicken with an attitude.” We both laughed and we ordered the chicken.

But the response got me thinking --- attitude. Attitude is the way we come across to one another. Attitude reveals the invisible shape of our heart when it reacts to what we perceive whether accurate or inaccurate. How we perceive is based on discernment and a hoped for accuracy. Say you are in a conversation and you make a joke thinking it will be accepted as such. However the opposite happens and someone has perceived it as offensive and reacts either by a withdrawing look or an angry response. Both sides have to recover but both sides have a prior attitude that caused the joking and the response. Attitude on both sides needs attention.

For instance when someone says, “My kids know what buttons to press to get my goat” they are revealing they have attitudes, points of emotional stress, when certain statements are made or when behavior is unacceptable to them. Unfortunately if they are negative responses this is what the kids will carry forward in their lives. Positive ones will be theirs as well. Which ones do we want them to have?

We also are aware there are many unwritten rules that cover what to say and do when you start a new job, meet a stranger, meet someone unexpectedly, desire to make friends, react to an insult, praise a friend, flatter a colleague and on and on. There is always the pleasant we want to show about ourselves to others and avoid the things that make others feel unpleasant. Attitudes come in all shapes and sizes and everyone has them in bundles. Our frustration begs the question, “Why can't there just be one attitude wherever we go?” There is but first let's look at the problem.

Going back to the difference between wanting to appear jovial and taking everything seriously there is that sense of walking on relational egg shells with people. What shaped the attitudes that arrived at this divisive junction? For one it was necessary to be seen as someone easy to get along with and the other to take everything personal and seriously. Sometimes people are a mixture or variation of both. Both are attitudes founded in the way we have been conditioned by our social environment, our upbringing, our need to fit in, expectations in ourselves and from others and the pain or pleasure we found along the way. Add to this our uniqueness and immediately, if we approach this inner quest honestly, find that our imperfections from sin with its spirits of pride and fear have done incredible damage to our attitude. We find ourselves alone in our thoughts and insecure when it comes to living in a world full of the same kind of people all of whom have covered their fragile natures with relative conformity in order to survive. And this with some success or little success by worldly standards.

This relative conformity is the devil's playground, the 'what if' and the 'shoulda-coulda-woulda' regrets we accumulate in our self-evaluated autobiographies. We build attitudes that act as protective covers which are the spiritual fig leaves we inherited from Adam. We dress our selves in emotional kevlar, bullet proof vests and heat reflectors.

If we face reality it is not the temporary glow of social gaming but the internal presence of an honest God in an honest Lord through an honest Spirit that reshapes attitude. It's not what we trust in to survive but who we trust in to live in every next moment. This is the beginning of maturity and faithful appeal to the Word of God is the unfolding pavement upon which attitude traverses dark uncertainty and the uneven terrain of the moment. Let your mind picture what Paul says to the Philippians, “You should have the same attitude toward one another that Christ Jesus had, who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross! As a result God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Php.2:5-11).”

So then, outside of God, attitude is an emotional football bouncing who knows where when it hits the ground of choice. Its built in resiliency lasts just so long and fades when its shaped by fear and pride which give it a multi-layered exhausting set of expressions. In Christ attitude builds growing resiliency because the simplicity of having One Spirit absorbs and neutralizes its tendency to sin. Humility replaces pride. Faith replaces fear. Truth from the Word gives the mind God's reasoning to guide every choice and decision. Then faith and humility in Christ become our attitude carrying us into eternity. Attitude is the spiritual means the heart has of making Christ known to the world. His attitude reshapes our attitude. The heart that finds Christ compares and chooses between Him and the world's gaudy assortment. That adjustment embraces the Cross to wipe away the stained forms pride and fear have etched in our hearts through sin. Living under the Cross is God's plan of heart recovery and maturity.

Our attitude is the witness, the bearing, the essence people perceive when they meet us. So study, meditation and application of Scripture in the Body, where we share and compare, outfit us for witness in the world of attitudes. Hebrews declares its importance this way, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account (Heb.4:12-13).”

Next we'll take a passage or two and apply the discipline.