Attitude Adjustments

By Jill Krueger Wagner

If you had a good father like I did, I would guess that more than once he had to adjust your bad attitude. One incident that illustrated that for me was when Dad was about 40 minutes late to pick me up from school. I was very perturbed. When he finally got there the first words out of his mouth were an apology – he owned his own business and a customer had come into the office just as he was about the leave to pick me up BUT I didn’t care, I vented my anger at being kept waiting. My first inkling that perhaps I shouldn’t have done that was his total silence. I soon forgot the unpleasant incident but my dad didn’t. He knew I needed and attitude adjustment – I was way too entitled. Sometime later I called to ask him to come pick me up. His response was, “I’m sorry Jill but I wouldn’t be able to come for at least 30 minutes and I know how you hate to wait so just walk home.” Then he hung up. Immediately I recognized my error in not appreciating my dad’s apology, his willingness to come and pick me up, and my heaping nastiness on that good man at the previous event. Lesson learned.

Those of us who are Christians have a good heavenly Father who also knows how to adjust our attitudes. He wants us to have the same attitude as Christ (Eph. 2:5) and when we don’t, He will find a way to adjust it.

I recall Job’s three friends who thought he was being punished for some secret sin when, in reality, he was “blameless and upright” in God’s sight. They had a twisted view of the situation and needed to offer a sacrifice for not speaking of God “what is right” (Job 42:7) and causing Job additional heartache in his already difficult situation. Fortunately for them, Job prayed for them and God forgave.

And I think of Saul, who later was called Paul. He was so certain that Jesus’ followers were wrong that he arrested them and put them in prison. He was on his way to Damascus to capture more Christians to bring them back to jail in Jerusalem when Jesus dramatically adjusted his attitude on the road (Acts 9). He went from persecutor to preacher in a short time.

In a similar story, John Newton went from slave trader to the minister who wrote “Amazing Grace.”

 Those of us who have had an encounter with the God of the universe know the power of our God. He can adjust what we believe and who we are through the power of His Word and His Spirit. We may welcome some adjustments or fight them, but ultimately “our God supplies all our needs” (Philippians 4:19). It’s good to embrace His correction for, in reality, He wants nothing but the best for you and “your arms are too short to box with God.” Don’t fight that losing battle, just accept His will, displaying an attitude like His dear Son.