Living It Out.

My wife and I host a small group in our home a couple of times a month. We study the Bible from the You version app on our phones. The last study we did was on attitude. The kinds of attitude that we have when things happen to us. Good, bad or indifferent. The study was reminding us to have an attitude of Christ in every situation. This was kind of eye opening for  me, because even now, I still get a terrible attitude about things. When I do something stupid I say to myself "that wasn't very Christ honoring or pleasing to God." I am a work in progress on this. I have to keep reminding myself of this verse. 2 Corinthians 5:17  (NLT)¹⁷ This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! So my wife and I had a chance to live this out recently. We volunteered at Winter Jam in Peoria last week, Thursday. We had reserved a room for the night at a hotel in town because the concert would be getting out late. When we got to the hotel, the clerk told us that his internet was down and he could not tell which rooms had someone in them, and which ones did not. So he gave us a key and away we went. We got to the door, inserted the key and it was locked by one of those things from the inside. Oh boy!! So we go back down to the desk and tell the clerk this. He gives us another room key and this time he goes with us to see. Again, put the key in and again locked from the inside. Now what. We all head back to the desk to figure out what to do next. Now in my previous life before Christ, I would have been going off right about now on the clerk. But God gave me/us an attitude of peace, mercy and grace! It wasn't the clerks fault that his internet didn't work. He called the hotel across the street to see if they had anything available, and they had the same issues as he had. So that was a no go. So he set off by himself to find us a room. He was gone about 10 minutes. When he came back, he had found a room. Hallelujah. He got us all checked in, and gave us an extreme discount on the room. He apologized a hundred times for what was going on. We told him that we understood and just wanted to go to bed. I think that because we had the right attitude towards the situation, things worked out well for us in the end. James 1:19-20 (NLT)¹⁹ Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. ²⁰ Human anger^[a] does not produce the righteousness^[b] God desires.