It rained all day yesterday, and it was just one of those “regular” Mondays. Yet I chose to dwell on happy, positive thoughts. I didn’t let anything get me down. I chose to be joyful!

So this made me think about this essay topic: “The Beauty of Service.” What if I kept this attitude every day? My attitude is a way to serve Christ — when I choose to dwell on my blessings instead of negative things, this brings God glory.

A recent column in HomeLife Magazine quoted author Sidlow Baxter, who says, “What’s the difference between an obstacle and an opportunity? Our attitude toward it. Every opportunity has a difficulty and every difficulty has an opportunity.” (Feb. 2006, p. 16).

A few years ago, I was in a women’s Bible study, and I was having a hard time dealing with something going on in my life. I talked to the leader privately one night afterward, expecting her to have pity on (poor ol’ self-righteous) me and say, “Well, I’ll pray for you. God will work things out.”

Instead she said, “Heather, I can see that you’re holding on to this instead of giving it to God. You need to let it go or you’re going to become a very bitter person.”

Bitter? Who, me? I think of bitter people as being older people who have a permanent sour look on their faces, like they’ve just tasted a lemon. Bitter, indeed!

But that was an epiphany for me — and it’s now years later that I’m finally able to realize how right she was and to say that God is teaching me how to let things go that used to bother me. This leader also taught us the whole point of Christian living is to know Christ and to make Him more fully known by being radiant with joy — no lemony looks allowed.

So, in this coming year, I want to serve Christ by deliberately replacing my negative thoughts with positive. As Paul writes in Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”

Max Lucado says it this way:

I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance. I will refuse the temptation to be cynical… the tool of the lazy thinker. I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings, created by God. I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.

How about you? Is there an area in your life where you could serve Christ by choosing joy over bitterness? Let’s pray for one another — and give Him the glory.