"Attitude Adjustment"

Attitude adjustment - it is something we all live with daily; the need to do it and the question of how to do it. Over the past few years, I have chosen a path that has been very beneficial on many levels. There was a lot going on around me and it was very easy to be distracted by one crisis oranother. One day I determined to wake up earlier than usual and spend an hour with a devotional. I had chosen “My Utmost for His Highest” by Oswald Chambers (the updated version). I can honestly say that my temperament, patience and tolerance have all increased due to this blessed time of my day. My formula was to read through the daily reading once or twice and write down my thoughts; what I thought he was saying and how it applied to me at this moment in my life. It opened up for me a one-on-one dialogue with God as I saw areas in my life that I needed to work on, and wasbeing encouraged to be a totally sold out disciple for Christ and let Him work through me in my world. I then found that I would flow into a prayer of thanksgiving or praise or even recognition of a change in me that needed to be made. I wrote out the prayer as if it were a letter from me to God, then it ended up being a two-way exchange.

…so that I may finish my race with joy and the ministry whichI received from the Lord Jesus… Acts 20:24

There it was again ~ right where I am living! I had begun to think that maybe it was time to move on. Thoughts had crept in about changing my situation and then I read the devotion for today and was corrected, yet again, from making a move without permission. Any ministry I participate in is to fulfill God’s purpose, not man’s. I answer to Him and only Him. I am to be loyal to the commission given me until He chooses to move me. So, I will buckle under and fulfill this assignment. True obedience is what He asks of me. To suffer the small discomforts of this life so I may have the full benefits and rewards of the next. This is why I must practice this daily time alone with Him. I need to be constantly readjusting my thinking, my motives and even my feelings as they can be so easily bent out of shape. I have heard that my spiritual life is much like a missile. It never flies in a straight line, but is being constantly readjusted by degrees until it reaches it’s target.

“Search my heart and motives O Lord! Bring to my attention and clean out the wicked ordispleasing thing in my thinking or feelings. Remove the garbage that can collect in my heart from the things around me: attitudes, pettiness, criticism or disloyalty that can damage my spirit.Readjust my focus and the true aim of my heart which is to be totally fixed on You and Your plan for me in this life. Amen.”

Fiona Monaghan
Staff Administrative Assistant