The Bible says in Job 14:1, "Man that is born of a woman, is of a few days and dull of trouble."

So, trouble is just a part of life. You can't escape it. But with the right attitude, you can make it a lot easier.

Most of our problems, we create ourselves, by adopting the wrong attitude. Do you hold grudges? Are you bitter? Do you have a hot temper? Do you want to get back at somebody?

Let's talk about grudges. A friend of mine holds grudges. He's always talking about what somebody did to him. They do the same to me, but I've found that I feel a lot better if I just forget what they've done. That way, the next time I see them, they are still my friends.

But this man, complains and works himself into a stew. Then he gets sick, and feels sorry for himself, and wants people to pamper him. So I pamper him a little and he feels better.

Remember, the next time, I might need to be pampered because of my own self pity. But, that self pity, is something else. We can really work up a case when we want people to feel sorry for us. Poor little old me! Nobody calls me to find out how I'm doing. They just don't even care. Nobody loves me! Poor little old me! Have you ever thought that way? But they do care. It's just that they are busy with their own problems.

The best way to pull out of that, is to spend the day helping others, or just doing nice things for others that day. How? Call up somebody to see how they are doing. Take some old person to the grocery store. Wave at everyone you pass on the road. Talk to someone that looks sad. Smile, smile, smile. Enjoy life- the little things. Smile and talk to little babies & they will really light up. I love kids, and all I have to do is to talk to one at the grocery store & they want to crawl out of the grocery basket.

There's a 1000 kindnesses you can do to help cheer up others,

but the best part of it, is when you cheer them up, you cheer yourself up even more.

Let's talk about being bitter, and what that can do to you.

Did you know, a medical doctor, who was a Christian, wrote a book on diseases caused by our wrong attitudes? It's been out of print for several years now, but I used to have a copy of this book.

In it, he showed the relationship between attitudes and sicknesses; using the Bible for his information.

He had a young woman patient who was already coming down with arthritis. So he asked her how she got along with people. At first she said that everything was fine. So he probed a little deeper. As he searched into her life, he found that she was very bitter against her mother. This set up a wrong chemical reation in her body, that caused the arthritis.

Then, the other day I got a little booklet from a Heart Surgeon, along the same lines. He told of an experiment that they were doing to find out how large doses of cholesterol would affect the rabbits. The tests were to see how long the rabbits would live under these large doses. They used eight rabbits, and all of them died but one! The doses were the same for all rabbits.

What happened? Here's what they found out. Each day, before giving this one rabbit cholesterol, the lady reseacher picked the

rabbit up, stroked it, and talked to it. That was the only difference!

The doctor found out that through simple human contact, comforting words, and by feeling good about yourself, the body develops a chemical. And this chemical boosts the immune system!

Now, that goes right along with Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brethern, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any praise, think on these things."

Well, it looks like I need to work a lot on that myself!

(This teaching by Bro. Paul Smarse was published in the paper).

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