Negativity can begin as a visceral reaction to offense, suffering, or fear, but the longer you let it grow, the more power it will steal from you. It will take over as your interpreter of relationships and circumstances, and become your main defense system. Unchecked, it can develop into a worldview, a way of life, and an idol replacing a genuine relationship with God.
Negativity isn’t just a synonym for being practical, realistic, or somewhat pessimistic. Those with a negative mindset are always searching for what’s wrong, or studying what could go wrong, to protect themselves from the possibility of pain, failure, or loss. Those with negative hearts look for sins, faults, and failings in others to affirm their judgments of those who don’t think exactly the same way they do, and to rationalize their need to distance or destroy anyone they can’t control.
The insidiousness of being focused on what’s wrong in others is that you become your own version of what you judge. You are transformed by the thoughts you cultivate—the more bitterness, criticism, resentment, fear, arrogance, and hate you hold onto, the more negative your identity becomes. That negativity creates its own theology, politics, and social systems, and won’t ever let you rest, be happy, or content. If you let your heart become so hard you can justify devaluing a life—any life—you’ll probably have to spend most of your time finding ways to hate what you fear just to survive.
So what’s the point? It’s that you have a choice. You have the power to surrender every negative judgment, thought pattern, and memory, and invite God to begin displacing all of it with the thoughts He has for you, thoughts of peace, life, and blessing, not one of negativity, to give you hope and a real future (Jer. 29:9). He may want to deal with some of the roots of negativity, so they never have control of you again. Some will get broken just by laughing at them. Others might need to get pulled out by forgiving those who’ve hurt you. It will take time and discipline to build a new thought–life with Him, but it’s a discipline of grace and joy, one that makes you feel whole and energized, not broken and exhausted.
“The one who seeks good finds delight; the student of evil becomes evil” (Proverbs 11:27).
“Don’t angrily obsess about the wicked, or envy those who do wrong . . . Trust in the Lord and do good, and you’ll live safely in the land and feast on His faithfulness.
Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the Lord—trust Him, and He will help you” (Psalms 37:1-5).
Equip Your Spirit 