What theme song would best represent your attitude about life?

Do you have a “song”?

You know, a particular song you like to think of as being the perfect “theme song” for your life?

If you listen to some people, you would think they had adopted as their own anthem an unusual tune sung each week on an old variety show called, “Hee Haw,” which attempted a blend of country music and humor. The song sang regularly on the show had these lyrics:

“Gloom, despair, and agony on me;
deep, dark depression, excessive misery!
If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all;
oh gloom, despair, and agony on me!”

That’s not the kind of song that makes you want to get up and dance! But it might be a fitting musical theme for the way many view their lives.

Now, no doubt, some people suffer in life to such a degree a song like that would sound optimistic … but most of us don’t, yet sound like we do.

Do you have to face congested rush hour traffic getting to work each day? Gloom, despair, and agony on me!

Is your life busy because you chose to sign up your kids for every sports activity available? Deep, dark depression, excessive misery!

Did you actually have to spend a little face time with the family because wifi was down for an hour? Oh gloom, despair, and agony on me!

Many of us, regardless of the true measure of our life’s circumstances, choose a “Woe is me!” attitude about life when, in reality, if we look at just how much God really has blessed us, we should have a “Wow is me!” view of life. To that end, the Apostle Paul instructs us to tone down the griping …

“Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people,” Phillipians 2:14-15.

“Shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people” sounds like a staggering challenge, until you take stock of just how blessed you are, which Paul again helps us with …

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ,” Ephesians 1:3.

So what is it that sets the tune for our lives? Our attitudes.

Victor Frankl, who experienced and survived the horrors of a World War II concentration camp, once 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.” Steve Goodier, writing for Quote Magazine, provides this insight regarding the attitudes we choose:

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? What attitude have you chosen for your life? What would be your song?

Scotty