This is a public service announcement: This Saturday, November 4, 2023 Daylight Savings Time ends, which means you will need to turn your clocks BACK one hour before you go to bed. You will gain an extra hour of sleep, yea! but you will lose an hour of daylight, yuck. For many people this is a sad time of the year, in fact some people enter into a state of depression connected to the changing season known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

I do not want to diminish the reality of how the seasons can impact someone’s mood or temperament; I recognize the reality of this phenomena in my own life. I also realize how we view life in general has an enormous impact on how we navigate life. I have found that if we approach people and situations from a negative outlook, a negative outcome will usually follow. Conversely, if we have a positive outlook toward people and situations the outcome is often positive. If you are looking for the negative in people and situations you will certainly find them, no one or situation is ever perfect. If we seek the positive in people and situations they can usually be found.

The Apostle Paul addresses how our view of life impacts our response and reactions to others and situations in his letter to the church in Philippi, delineated as chapter four verse eight in our Bible. Paul’s advice: “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Paul is commissioning us to reprogram our minds, to train ourselves to view life from a constructive perspective.

Today as you consider pausing at noon to Bend-A-Knee in prayer ask God to help you reprogram you mind toward a constructive approach to life. Imagine how different most outcomes will be with people and situations if you start by looking for the best in others and the circumstances that life will present to you. Life will never be perfect but our responses and reactions may change dramatically if we fix our thoughts on the constructive instead of the negative.

Stay connected to God & to others

God’s Peace,

Pastor Mike