Do you know people who attract bad luck in their lives? It may be people who get sick all the time or experience physical injuries. They have continual money problems. They complain about people all the time. They whine about people at work, their bosses, spouses, children, the economy, the government, and so on. They like misery. A by product of this condition is the feeling of self-pity. The poet D.H.Lawrence wrote a poem about self-pity and he found it interesting that only humans seem to suffer from this affliction:
“I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself. “
The animal world is immune from self-pity which points to the reality that people can bring this upon themselves through their choices. We humans have the power to allow thoughts to enter our minds and be absorbed into our hearts. The mind is the gateway for words to enter and transform us. And we control the gateway. How does God want us to enter His gates? In Psalm 100, God instructs us how to enter His gates, the minds and lives of other people. When we encounter people, we enter the gates of God and so God asks us to adopt a certain atitude when meeting other people: “enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” God wants us to meet people with gratitude. People who live in gratitude are not cursed with bad luck. Sure bad stuff happens to them, but their attitude helps them to overcome their twists of bad fortune. Also, when you are filled with gratitude, you don’t complain about the people around you. In fact, you learn to appreciate them and be grateful for their existence. Try practicing gratitude today. It will turn your life around very quickly.
