Faith Venture

Anyone capable of angering you becomes your master.

Epictetus

You open Facebook (or Twitter or email or whatever). You see a post from someone you know. The facts are completely wrong. The words are skewed to achieve maximum emotional impact. Your emotions are triggered. You immediately reach for the keyboard to respond.

You are a slave to that person.

You are in a conversation. The other person says things that seem like a personal attack. You respond personally. You attack. Your personality buckles into angry responding. 

You are a slave to a new master.

I have learned the pause—that moment before my fingers reach for the keyboard. That pause that lets me scroll past the nonsense.

I’ve talked of the pause before. It is one of the hardest things I’ve learned to do. Of course, the best way is to avoid needing the pause at all by simply realizing that I can control most of what I see. I can refuse to spend time in Facebook and Twitter. I can choose those people with whom to meet.

There are things in life that I cannot control But those I can control, those I had better exert effort to control.

TLDR.

Web speak for an article—Too Long; Didn’t Read.

Several years ago an acquaintance who read this blog said, “You’re a pretty good writer. You should send posts to (a certain Christian website).”

I contacted them. They said, “You’re a pretty good writer. For us, just write a headline for search engine optimization. Then write in bullet points. Make it 7 steps to, or 5 things that, and the like.”

I don’t do that.  I also try to avoid negativity (not always successfully…). That sells, too. So this blog never hit the big numbers.

The thing is—spiritual formation is both easy and hard.

The easy part is that there are only a few things you need to do.

The hard part is maintaining a right attitude and doing the few things every day. 

And, if your attitude that morning sucks, well, do the few things anyway. The doing reminds you that you are the type of person who is growing toward spiritual maturity. And that adjusts your attitude.

It’s like a virtuous cycle.

Are you about to hire someone? Perhaps you’ve met a new friend? Want to know about them? Go out to dinner or a good lunch. Watch how they treat the hostess. How do they interact with the server? How do they treat the other restaurant staff?

How one treats servers in these unguarded moments reveals character.

By the way, how do you (I) treat servers?

Maybe it’s time for an attitude change.