The Attitude of Contentment

"Attitude is Everything" read the little sign tacked above the serving window in the diner.  I made a mental note that I had seen, in that same week, the same sign at the meat processor when we took a steer in to be butchered.  I've been praying that God would make me aware of His leading; so not leaving anything to chance, I took these "Attitude is Everything" signs as His sign to me.

Time for self-examination.

 

  Attitude (a bad one or a good one) affects everything in my life.

 

  Yeah, I get that. 

 

Do I have a bad attitude?

 

<<apparently>>

 

Admit it!!! 

 

**Ok.  Ok.  I admit my bad attitude.**

 

 

One of the hayfields
....ready to be baled this week.

So where am I struggling?  In contentment.  That seems strange....looks strange on the page as I'm writing.   I've spent that last several days chewing on the whys of my lack of contentment.  We're living a beautiful, contented life on a bucolic farm in a scenic part of the state.  I'm quite happy with the simple farm life.  I find comfort in the daily routine of tending to the farm and the animals on it.  It's refreshing to be hours away from a big city, to have very limited cell phone service and television reception.   

 

The answers to the whys came as intermittant drizzles during my week....in my quiet times spent reading the Bible, in radio programs on various topics, in movies, during chores.....

 

Why the negative attitude?  It boils down to this:  I have let myself feel guilty for not being ambitious for what the world calls "success."   ... I sometimes feel that I am less than I should be because I'm not pursuing riches, power and prestige.   Like:  "Sheesh...don't ya want more out of life than this?  Is this the extent of your amibition?  What about that empire you were gonna build?  What would 'the Donald' say?" 

 

 

I'm tired of trying to defend my kind of ambition (to myself as well as to others).  Like: "What?  Like the simple life is bad?  Is it bad to even want the simple life?"

 

 

 

My kind of ambition?....it's found in 1 Thessalonians 4:11,12

 

¹¹ Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, ¹² so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

 

 

and here in Romans 12:2

 

 

² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

 

 

and here in 1 John 2:15-16

 

¹⁵ Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶ For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world.

 

 

I'm ashamed to admit that for too long I let the world's definition of success be the goal worth pursuing...and I bought the tickets, waited at the station and boarded that train!  Thankfully, I eventually hopped off that fast track (forced off, actually.... through a series of the opening of some doors and the closing of others, we landed on this farm...picture the conductor grabbing us up out of our seats and throwing us out of a moving train!  haha).  Whose definition of success am I going to heed?  The world's?  God's?  Uhhhh, I'm gonna go with God's, for 1000, Alex. 

 

By writing this out, it has helped me start climbing out of the negatives.  I know my goal is to live my life God's way..... He put me where I can bloom.  How can I have a bad attitude about that?  It's a work in progress.....  Today I'm adjusting my attitude --> The Attitude is  now set to {contentment} on the dial.  I'll check my progress along the climb. 

 

 

What about you?  How's your attitude?