Choosing your attitude …

It was Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who endured the horrors of a concentration camp as a Holocaust survivor, who said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: To choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.”

Frankl highlights the fact that our circumstances, regardless of how difficult or trying, do not determine our attitudes, but rather we craft our own attitudes regardless of what our circumstances may be.

The concept of attitudes can be better understood by looking at the structure of an attitude through the “ABC model”:

Affective component – This involves a person’s feelings and emotions about the object of an attitude. For example: “I am scared of snakes.”

Behavioral component – The way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave. For example: “I will avoid snakes and scream if I see one.”

Cognitive component – This involves a person’s beliefs and knowledge about the object of an attitude. For example: “I believe snakes are dangerous.”

Thus, our attitude about a snake isn’t created by the presence of a snake; rather, it is formed by our “ABC’s” regarding the object, in this case, a snake.

Regardless of what the object is, we craft our own attitudes about it! As Christians, our attitudes are reshaped by our new nature in Jesus Christ …

“Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him,” Colossians 3:10.

“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had,” Philippians 2:5.

Before entering into a covenant relationship with Jesus, our attitudes are forged in spiritual death, whereas after being saved by Jesus, our new attitudes should exude our new lives in Christ. Steve Goodier touches on this idea writing for Quote Magazine:

Both the hummingbird and the vulture fly over our nation’s deserts. All vultures see is rotting meat, because that is what they look for. They thrive on that diet. But hummingbirds ignore the smelly flesh of dead animals. Instead, they look for the colorful blossoms of desert plants. The vultures live on what was. They live on the past. They fill themselves with what is dead and gone. But hummingbirds live on what is. They seek new life. They fill themselves with freshness and life. Each bird finds what it is looking for. We all do.

What are you looking for? Are you allowing the Holy Spirit to reshape your attitudes so that you have the same attitudes as Jesus?

Scotty