Matt W Cook

Scenario 1:
You’re having a wonderful day. Everything seems to be going your way. When you woke up this morning the sun was shining brightly through your window. Your mother or spouse surprised you by making your favorite breakfast, which you gobbled down with glee. Work or school called in the morning and said that it was cancelled for the day, leaving you free to do whatever you want. Yippee! You do just that, too. Maybe you play some games or go for a walk. Whatever you choose to do you have fun for hours until lunchtime. Lunchtime you come home. For some reason some family member or friend meets you at the door. Something he or she says offends you. Bang. Good day wrecked. You take whatever was said to heart and you’re miserable for the rest of the day, even after you’ve forgotten what was said. The good things of the day are gone; all that remains is your melancholy.

Scenario 2:
You’re having a bad day. Why? Who knows? When you woke up this morning the sun was shining right in your eyes, disturbing your sleep. Your mother or spouse made you breakfast, but something was probably wrong with it. On top of all that, work called and cancelled your shift today! Just when you needed the money, too! This left you idle and bored to death. You waste some time playing games or going for a walk. Around lunchtime you come home and some friend of yours is there and tries to say something nice to cheer you up. It doesn’t work and you’re made even more miserable. What a crappy day.

Have you ever noticed how good moods often seem like glass houses when bad moods are like rock-hard fortresses? When you are happy, it only takes a wrong word or accident to make everything fall apart. But when you’re in a bad mood all the good things in the world don’t seem to be able to cheer you up. It’s a shame that things don’t work out the other way around. It’s funny how we refuse to let go of our bad moods, even when our brain should be telling us that everything is going well for us. Even the bright attitudes of friends and family we take as insults or annoyances. Sometimes I think we like be miserable.

It’s neat to re-read familiar passages. I read this recently:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

You know what part I just noticed? Guard. It doesn’t say that prayer will give you peace. It says that through prayer and thanksgiving the peace of God will become a guard for your hearts and minds. When we fall on God for our every need and see our lostness and impotence without him and cry out for help his peace will guard our affections. We will find our personalities to change and maybe we won’t live in fragile, glass-house moods, our temperaments will be made more consistent. We’ll start to see and hear clearly. We won’t interpret the greeting of a friend as a veiled insult. We won’t be easily annoyed by the screaming kid while you’re trying to work. You won’t let insults and adversity wet your spirit. So much is great when you fall on God, isn’t it?

Moving back to Kunri soon. Pray that He will send all that should come to us. On we go.