Do You Have Limburger Cheese In Your Attitude?

John Clardy

Have you ever noticed that some people are always full of optimism even when it seems like everything bad is happening to them.  There are those people that can seem to find the silver lining in any cloud.  When life hands them a lemon they make lemonade. 

But then there are also those people that no matter how blessed they are, no matter how good something is they are always able to see something bad in it.  They never see the glass as half full, always as half empty.  They are like a farmer I heard about. “Well Farmer Jones, it looks like you are going to have a good potato crop this year.”  “Yeah,” he replied, “but where are the bad ones to feed the hogs.”

What is the difference?  It is a choice of attitude! It is the way we decide to face life’s difficulties.  We have the power to choose the way we will respond to adversity in our life in the way think and speak!  We can speak faith or we can speak failure.  We can speak victory or defeat.

It is easy to get stuck in what I call ‘Stinkin Thinkin’.  How many times have we bought into an evil report? How many times have we thought ourselves into a foul mood or worried ourselves into a nervous tizzy!  Stinkin Thinkin has robbed us of peace and contentment.  It causes us to look at everything in a negative way.

Consider this anecdote:  Each afternoon while the grandkids were in school Grandpa would lie down for a nap. One day, the kids came home early and found him fast asleep on the couch, and so they decided to have some fun with him. They dabbed Limburger cheese in his moustache. Moments later, Grandpa woke up, took a few sniffs and then observed, "Why, this room stinks!" From the couch he made his way into the kitchen, but it wasn’t long before he decided that the kitchen stunk too. So he stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. Much to his chagrin, the air outside smelled just as bad as the air inside, to which he exclaimed, "The whole world stinks!"

When Moses sent 12 men into Canaan to spy out the land, Caleb and Joshua’s attitude was – “Let us go up at once.  We are well able to possess the land.  God is on our side how can we fail.” But the other ten got Limburger cheese in their attitude!  They said, “Yes, it is a land that flows with milk and honey but there are walled cities and giants in the land.  We were like grasshoppers in our own sight.  How, can we succeed?

Then the majority of Israel got Limburger cheese in their attitude and bought into the bad report.  Joshua and Caleb and anyone under the age of 20 lived to see and enjoy the promise of God.  The others wandered and died in the wilderness because of their bad attitude.

In Philippians 4:4, Paul wrote, "Rejoice in the Lord always ..." Do you know where Paul was when these words were penned?  He was in a Roman prison. What I learn from the apostle is that while I can’t control all of the circumstances in my life, I can control my attitude towards them.

What about you? Have you got Limburger cheese in your attitude? Does the whole world smell bad?  Whose report do you believe? Do you need an attitude adjustment? 

The psalmist pointed out the only reason we need to rejoice in the Lord daily.  This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.       Ps 118:24   

The Lord has designed ever day especially for us.  That means that even the trials that come our way are built into that day by God.  And if God has planned it for us, He has also designed it for our good. And that is something to rejoice in!