Turn That Frown Upside Down – The Importance of Positive Thinking

Hello! Happy day after the fourth of July! Hope you all had a great day yesterday celebrating our country with family and friends. This was the first year I wasn’t at Lake Michigan with my family to celebrate the fourth, so it was a little but strange, but we ended up having a great time celebrating in Texas – slept in, got coffee, went to the pool, and had dinner with friends and watched the fireworks over Lake Grapevine at night. All in all it was a great day, and the fireworks were awesome!

Lake Grapevine

Anyways, I was recently thinking about how our thoughts have a direct impact on our lives – the way we perceive it, and the choices that we make. Proverbs 23:7a says, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” The way in which we think about ourselves and our lives is essentially what we will get. Choosing to think negatively about your situation will cause that situation to turn out negatively, whereas thinking positively will yield positive results. Sound over simplistic? Too good to be true? Or maybe, too difficult? While I understand that sometimes it can be very difficult to think about your situation in a positive light, it is not impossible.

Think about it. Say you are looking for a job, and you’ve been looking for an extended period of time. As time goes by, you start to lose hope of ever finding something, and you begin to think about yourself and your situation negatively. You might think or say things like, “I’ll never get a job,” or “no one wants to hire me, I must be doing something wrong.” You speaking or thinking those negative statements causes further negativity, and reinforces the hopelessness of your situation. If you don’t think you’ll be able to get a job, then you won’t.

Or, maybe you have low self-esteem, and it is difficult for you to find something positive about yourself. You constantly are thinking or saying things like, “I’m fat,” or “no one likes me,” or “I wish I was prettier, or skinnier, or better at __.” Same concept applies here. If you think no one likes you, then you aren’t going to be a very likable person. If you are constantly thinking about how fat or ugly you are [even though you are not either of those things], then you’re never going to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and recognize how beautiful, unique and wonderful you really are.

It’s time to stop thinking about ourselves, our lives, and our current situations in a negative light. When we choose to think positively, despite the temptation to wallow in self-pity, we choose to embrace the people God has called us to be, and start living the life he has called us to live. We can’t do this if we are constantly feeling badly about ourselves and our situations. Negativity keeps our potential in chains, preventing us from becoming all God has called us to be. The only way to break those chains is to begin to think positively about all aspects of our lives. Only then, when we begin to see ourselves in the positive light that God sees us, will we truly be able to begin living the lives he has called us to live.

Don’t wait another moment. Choose to change your thinking from negative to positive – it’s probably going to be challenging at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll never want to go back to negativity again. I guarantee it!