May 19, 2020
Positive Thinking
“A joyful heart is good medicine….” Proverbs 17: 22
The well-known positive-thinking preacher, the late Norman Vincent Peale, tells the story about having dinner in a railway car with a couple during a business trip. The woman dressed in designer clothes and diamonds rather loudly declared the railway car dingy and drafty, the service poor and the food terrible. Her husband, in contrast, was a pleasant, easy-going, enjoyable man. During dinner Dr. Peale asked the man what business he was in. He said he was a lawyer and that his wife was in manufacturing. Dr. Peale asked: “What does she manufacture?” “Unhappiness,” the man replied. “She manufactures her own unhappiness.”
It is true that we all have the capability of manufacturing our own happiness, especially in times like this when we feel locked-down and lost from our daily, comforting routines. It’s easy to have a negative mind-set and to complain about all the things that aren’t going your way. But those are the world’s ways, and not the Christian’s. Paul writes in Romans 12: 2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
If we ask Christ, He will give us the strength to renew our minds and hearts with joyful thoughts about the possibilities that await us every day. Then we will find ourselves manufacturing our own happiness.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, help us to see the glass half-full instead of half-empty. May the Holy Spirit renew our minds with pleasant thoughts of each of the days ahead of us. In Your name we pray. Amen.