Deutsche Version | Wiki Start | Topics Collection vi

How to change my attitudes ...

Friday, Mar 28, 2014. Currently, I am taking some days off from work to get away from the needs and daily activities in my work place. One of the things I wanted to do is to think about how to improve my overall focus. I am trying to work on my mind!

Days off to think …

In the first three days of my little holiday I worked on our house at home. I put tiles into our guest room in the cellar. Now, the tiles are done - and I am happy that I managed to get this finished before I went away for some further days.

After the more manual activities at the beginning of the time-out, I am now back into science and into reflection. As a scientist, it is always good to think about what you do and what you know about your subject. Innovation comes from thinking with a fresh view, and then trying to do what has not been done before.

But my task is not only scientific. I also want to understand God in a better way. I want to step out of the routine and ask the Lord how I can follow him in a better way. How I can be changed into what he wants me to be. And there is a lot which can be changed and which needs to be changed. I find a lot in my life - and you will probably find a lot in yours as well, as soon as you sit down and look at yourself in a quiet hour.

Change …

The New Testament letters offer a lot of advice how to change and tell us about this transformation which is carried out in faith and through faith. Let us look into an important passage of Ephesians 4:

17 Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19 They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self,6 which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

What does it mean to put of the old self? What does it mean to be renewed in the spirit? You need to see this with respect to very concrete things in your own life. For example, one of the concrete steps can be to change my attitude towards the behaviour of some people in my work place. If someone is nasty, it is no point of being too dependent on his behavour, even if it is his role to lead you or guide you, even if we have to work with him every day. If it is your desire to do well and get acknowledgement for it, but the person who you try to please does not want to acknowledge you, there is no point of pressing more and more, or on the contrary to become upset or even nasty yourself. It does not lead anywhere. This can be one typical situation where your desires, where your old personality is in your own way!

God wants us to be with him and get our acknowledgement from him (which can mean that he uses others as well). He wants us to be righteous and holy. He wants us to be happy, even in situations where we face some head wind. To put our hopes in him is one of the central exercises. The goal is a renewed attitude and a new life, which fully come to his peace, and to spread the blessing which he wants to give to everyone. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts