After watching Olympic figure skater Scott Hamilton commentate on the Olympics, I saw a link on social media to his story. I was curious. I clicked to hear more about his journey. It was interesting to learn about his joys and triumphs and also discover about the challenges and heartaches that have shook his world. He could have sunk into discouragement over his disabilities.
One comment he made cause me pause and reflect: "The only true disability in life is a bad attitude."
He did not consider his cancer or his brain tumor a disability. He was not bitter about the losses that he had experienced or the struggles that had brought him to his knees. He accepted that those things were used by God to guide him, grow him, and bless him. The one thing he knew to truly cripple was the attitude of the heart.
God agrees that the sinful attitudes we have carried in our hearts are corrupted. They will cripple us from living freely in this new way of life that we have been called to live. When we buy into the lies that the devil tells us we lose sight of the joys and blessing that God is working out in our lives, and our attitude reflects that stinkin' thinkin'.
God cares deeply about us and does not want us to get stuck in those old ways of thinking. Our attitude needs a significant adjustment. We are to be renewed in our attitudes so that our thinking begins to take on God’s righteousness and holiness, seeing ourselves has his redeemed children.
Ephesians 4:22-24 says, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
So how do we keep our attitude from crippling our life and becoming a disability?
Do not let a bad attitude cripple you from having the full life that God intended for you. Don't give in to a disability of the heart. Decide today to get a better attitude, the attitude of Christ. You can’t do it on your own; it is the work of the Spirit within you that has the power to transform. Allow God’s power to transform your attitude.
Rev. Dr. Rob Toornstra
Jolene DeHeer
Joella Ranaivoson