Attitude

My spiritual life right now consists of going to church (most Sundays), praying (at least the church prayer list), reading the Bible (via a phone app), and getting my devotional emailed to me every day.

My spiritual life is nice, but it’s not vibrant. It’s not…alive.

I know that I don’t get enough sleep to encourage myself to wake up early for time with God. I know that I don’t spend the time I need to let Him speak into my life. My prayers are entreaties. My prayers are selfish. They’re not acts of worship. They’re not conversations.

So yes, I need to do better on that.

And because of my weak prayer life; because of my weak spiritual life, I’m not growing. I’m not exactly shrinking either. I’m mostly stagnant.

Again, that’s not okay.

I need to fix my attitude. But what made me think of this? My daily devotional:

Are we condemned to be passive victims of our moods?  Must we simply say:  “I feel great today” or “I feel awful today,” and require others to live with our moods?

Although it is very hard to control our moods, we can gradually overcome them by living a well-disciplined spiritual life.  This can prevent us from acting out of our moods.  We might not “feel” like getting up in the morning because we “feel” that life is not worth living, that nobody loves us, and that our work is boring.  But if we get up anyhow, to spend some time reading the Gospels, praying the Psalms, and thanking God for a new day, our moods may lose their power over  us.

Man, that’s some good stuff. It is so important for me to remember the impact attitude can have on my life. That I can’t control anything–God does–but I can control how I react to life’s challenges. It’s just like this quote (my absolute favorite):

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.  It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.  It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.  It will make or break a company…a church….a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.  We cannot change our past…we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.  We cannot change the inevitable.  The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude…I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.  And so it is with you…we are in charge of our attitudes.”
―    Charles R. Swindoll

What about you? How do you take on the day? Especially those days that seem to be too much?

Tuesday
100 pushups
100 sit ups
Read the Bible daily
Pray daily
Calorie surplus: +635

Total
45 minutes of Cardio at work
60 minutes of exercise at home.
50 pushups
50 sit ups
Read the Bible daily
Pray daily
Average Calorie Deficit: 260

Remaining
105 minutes of Cardio at work
120 minutes of exercise at home.
Walk/jog/run 10 miles
50 pushups
50 sit ups
Read the Bible daily
Pray daily
Date with Anna
Average Calorie Deficit:700