Happy new week!

It’s Monday morning and a new week with all sorts of opportunities, events, happenings, experiences, encounters, people and ideas stretch out before us like a freshly revealed beach that has not yet been walked on since the tide went out.

How do you respond to that? Did it energise and invigorate you or cause you to shrink and want to go back to bed? All of the opportunities, events, happenings, experiences, encounters, people and ideas are neutral at this stage. How we respond to them can make the difference between them dragging us down and lifting us up. I am not saying that bad things don’t (or won’t happen). They do. But how we respond to them has yet to be determined. I will try to explain with some examples. Words in [square brackets] are my honest answers, so please be gentle with me.

When you stub your toe do you hop around howling [yes] and then do nothing about it or do you use the experience to remind you that wearing shoes or slippers would be a good idea.

If you are cut up by a bad driver do you mutter under your breath about them [yes] and then get revenge [no] or use the experience to remind you that you are part of a whole flow of traffic and you can play your part in helping the flow move smoothly by driving carefully and considerately.

If you are running late do you howl and stomp [not usually] and work yourself into a frenzy of anxiety or take a few breaths and realise that the world will not stop turning if you are late occasionally, and make a phone call to explain the delay to the person waiting for you.

“When the world gives you lemons, make lemonade” is the sort of attitude I am asking God’s Spirit to cultivate within me. It is an extension of the attitude of gratitude that I am also asking him to grow in me. It is gratitude for the opportunity to respond positively to difficult circumstances. It is gratitude for the people around me that make me who I am by encouraging me and by making me think about myself in response to them.

A husband was in the bath. last thing at night, singing his little heart out. When he had finished and got dressed he went to find his wife. Eventually he found her outside the house, stroking their cat.

“Why are you out here in the middle of the night, stroking the cat?” he asked.

“I wanted to show the neighbours that I am not strangling the cat.”