Being Positive in a Negative Environment

What I Do In A Negative Environment

If you can do a Negativity Fast with your family and co-workers and church, you are so much further ahead than if you are surrounded with others who are negative.

Can you limit yourself to negative exposure? Sometimes you’ll need to walk away. We all have to at times. We live in a society that lives with the credo: “if it bleeds, it leads.” When something affects you negatively, even if it’s on the news, take it to God in prayer and/or turn it off. If you get angry reading the newspaper, put the paper away. I’m not espousing, “ignorance is bliss”. If we’d pray about the news that bothers us, we’d change the news.

Do other drivers set you off? If everyone who drives too slowly is a menace and everyone who passes you is a maniac, you’ll need to adjust your attitude. Give yourself more time to get places and make it a practice to bless those who curse you.

However, if the negative environment you’re in is your spouse or family or workplace or church family – it’s not as if you can cut yourself off from your life. Nor should you.

You are the salt of the world and light of the earth. You preserve and illuminate that of which you are a part. The gates of hell cannot prevail against you, but your path will be a little more troubled.
You need to live the promise of Isaiah 26:3:

You will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you! (NLT)

How can you do this? Learn how to practice the presence of God.

Brother Lawrence was a 16th century Carmelite monk. Having never studied for the ministry he was only accepted as a lay brother and kept in lowly positions. Yet despite, or perhaps because of that, many were attracted to his character. He was known for his profound peace.

He wrote in what would become “The Practice of the Presence of God”:

“As often as I could, I placed myself as a worshiper before him, fixing my mind upon his holy presence, recalling it when I found it wandering from him. This proved to be an exercise frequently painful, yet I persisted through all difficulties.”

Yet he persisted and later could say:

“I began to live as if there were no one save God and me in the world.”

Regardless of your environment, you can fast from negativity. Paul gives this advice to the church in Philippi:

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. 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. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8-9 (NLT)

As you fill yourself with the true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable, recognize God is always everywhere and then choose to live as if God is always everywhere.

This may only be encouraging when you grasp that God is good and desires good for His children.
When you live within a negative environment, you need to live with the understanding given to us by JB Philips’ translation of Romans 12:1-3:

“Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands, and moves toward the goal of true maturity” (Romans 12:1-3; Phillips)

Don’t use your negative environment as an excuse to remain negative. As a child of the one who created the weather, you bring your own weather wherever you go. As you allow God to renew your mind from within, you will begin to change the world around you. How’s that for a negativity fast challenge?

My name is Trevor Lund. I'm a Christian Speaker, Author and Lead Dreamer for Expectancy Ministries. I love to impart hope and empower destiny with creative communication, memorable motivation and applicable inspiration.