LifeTrac with Chuck Swindoll is a presentation of Insight for Living Canada.
Friends, the longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
You may not like this, but attitude to me is more important than facts.
It is more important than 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. It will cause a church to soar or sink.
It will be the difference in a happy home or a home of horror!
It’s attitude. And the remarkable thing is,
you have a choice every day regarding the attitude you will embrace for that day.
I am convinced now that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it.
And so it is with you.
You know, I confess to you, I begin my day the same way you begin it, early in the morning, with
a th . . . a number of things in front of me, just like you have a number of things in front of you.
That means we’re just alike. And I face a choice just as you face every single morning of my life!
Whether I will be glum, gloomy, whether I will be sad, whether I will fall under the pale,
under the wake of my circumstances, or whether I’ll live above them. And I can choose friends
that will keep me under them and poison my mind or I can be around friends that will lift me above
them and cause me to see life through God’s lens. I prefer the second. And that’s the kind I choose.
I won’t run with people that poison my mind. I won’t work with people that pull me down.
I choose to live a life according to chapter 2 in Philippians, and it’s only by the grace
of God that I’m able to do it, to live a life that is ABOVE my circumstance,
not under it. I get into trouble when I fall under the swamp of it!
Frankly, the greatest waste of energy, in my opinion, is the waste of fighting the
inevitables of life. Forgive me if it sounds harsh, but if someone has died,
your continued self-pity will not bring ‘em back. If someone has left and they are not returning,
you can choose to live in the wake of that loss or you can go on! That’s an attitude choice.
If you are single and God has not seen fit to give you a mate and you sense that is His plan, you can
go on and live a full life as a single person or you can phase out and become old early in life.
When I was in Chicago I had a very remarkable woman come to see me. After we talked for a
few minutes, she left me this note. “I love your sense of humor. Humor has done a lot to
help me in my spiritual life. How could I have raised 12 children starting at 32 and not have
a sense of humor. (laughter) After your talk last night, when I was having fellowship with friends
I . . . I met here at . . . at the conference, I told them I married at age 31.
I didn’t worry about getting married. I left my future in God’s will. But every night I did
do this. I hung a pair of men’s pants on the bed where I knelt down and prayed (laughter),
‘Father in heaven, hear my prayer and grant it if you can.
I’ve hung a pair of trousers here. Please fill them with a man.’” (laughter)
Think of your mind as a safety deposit box. Every day . . . you make attitude
deposits into that box. So . . . fill it with godly
attitudes . . . like joy . . . humility . . . encouragement . . . forgiveness . . . and love.
You fill the box . . . and you determine how you’ll respond to life.
This is Steve Johnson of Insight for Living Canada.
Listen to more of Chuck Swindoll’s LifeTrac messages at lifetrac dot C A.
LifeTrac. Where Life and Truth Meet
The preceding LifeTrac presentation was brought to you by Insight for Living Canada. The original
message, "Strengthening Your Grip on Attitudes," was copyrighted in 1981 and this LifeTrac sound
recording was copyrighted in 2015 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide.