Hey guys, how has been our week? Am continuing on what we began talking about in the previous post.I had to break up my post into two because it was becoming long and am not a big fan of long posts. I just had so many things to write and I didn’t want to lump them together. I will be sharing on how God is helping me overcome that attitude ‘thingy’.
The summary of what I will be sharing is found in the scripture we looked at in the previous post (Phil 2:5), but I will try to break it down for our understanding and add other things that I have found to be helpful.
Yielding to the Holy Spirit; for me, this is the easiest way to deal with our bad attitude. We have the Holy Spirit in us and the beautiful thing is that he doesn’t only help us to understand the bible; He wants to be involved in every detail of our lives including this one. I have had times when my flesh deliberately decided to ignore the nudging of the Spirit because I wanted to have my way and I ended up displaying the bad attitude. If we constantly yield to the Holy Spirit, He will help us. He is the greatest teacher in these matters of love and relating with one another. He will help us to walk in love.
Also, I talk with the Holy Spirit about everything. You can talk to him too, telling him exactly how you feel and what you will do if he doesn’t help you. How you want to have your way and gain the upper hand, how your flesh desires to puff itself up and get all the glory. He will reach out to you with both the willingness and the ability to do the right thing.
Walking in love; this is a very easy thing to say or type on the keyboard, but the truth is that it is impossible for the natural man to walk in love. The flesh is selfish, self-centered and self absorbed, it wants to only satisfy itself. The love walk is also not a magical overnight stuff that you do. It is a walk- you take one step after the other, you keep moving. In our relationships with one another, we have the opportunity to learn the love walk, sometimes we miss it, other times we may not but we don’t stop because we didn’t get it the last time. Decide to walk in love knowing that God has poured his love into your heart already; it’s now your responsibility to let it flow out by consciously deciding to walk in love.
Sometime ago, I had this issue with a friend that made me very angry. I got so angry that I turned off my phone, cutting all lines of communication. I just wanted to make her know how angry I was and how she will be punished with trying to reach me, and guess what, I achieved it big time. How can I just let her go free after hurting me so much? She had to pay for it. It took days of ignoring Gods word to walk in love, days of consciously ignoring the leading of the Holy Spirit, days of feeding my fleshy desire for revenge and punishing someone else. Now I look back and think of it as one of the most stupid things I have ever done. I just laugh and shake my head at how carnal I was. I had to apologize to her and we talked about it, everything was resolved and I got my friend back.
Communication; let me dwell on this one a little more. In your relationship with one another you should consciously decide to talk. Talk to one another about how you feel, it’s not good to leave someone in the dark, its emotional blackmail. Keeping quiet about it makes the matter even more ambiguous, don’t lock up and store it inside. Am not saying you should give the other person a piece of your heart, but kindly and lovingly express your grievances, it makes the other person know you are in for peace. Talk about it and let it go, you are obeying God by calling the shots and going to make peace. If you feel you are too angry to talk, and talking will make you say harsh words, it is wise to let the person know that you want to postpone it and talk about it when you are more composed. This is very important.
Selflessness; I have discovered that most times when we give people attitude; it is not because we have to, but because we chose to. We make this decision unconsciously when we seek for our own interest above that of others. Let me share a hard truth with you: If you desire a quarrel free relationship that will stand the test of time, it requires a lot of work mostly in the area of dying to yourself. This self you are seeing doesn’t ever want to be defeated, it doesn’t want to lose an argument (even when it means losing a friend), and it always wants to get the upper hand. So if that’s what you have been doing in your relationships, you are sowing to the flesh and you know what that means. You need to let go of your rights, you need to forget about yourself; attitude constantly reminds us of our flesh, in fact attitude feeds the flesh, it fuels its desires and makes it difficult to walk in love.
Finally, it is very possible to have beautiful relationships with people whether it is a marriage relationship or just relating with your friends and peers, this is God original plan. That way, we become a blessing to them and they also bless us, and together we can bring glory to our father who is in heaven. We can’t see all this happen when we always quarrel and display that attitude ‘thingy’.
Remember: we have the attitude of Christ already; we don’t need the other attitude.
Much Love.
