DRA’s come rolling out of our hearts like hot lava out of a volcano, with heat and fire. Negative, cynical, critical, can’t do mentality, are some of our favorites. You run into them every day. Listen to parents at school, overhear office talk in the break room, the chatter during phone calls and e-mail, and the rumblings of your own heart. They flow so easily.
DRA’s are motivation killers to the people who want to make a difference. DRA’s are like wagon trains in the Old West. Once word spread that a new wagon train was leaving St. Louis and heading west, wagons showed up from everywhere. DRA’s beget more DRA’s.
Battling DRA’s is tough business. I’ve got my own DRA’s to deal with, as well as the DRA’s of people around me. I was recently challenged by two aspects from the life of King Hezekiah…
2 Chronicles 31:20 This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah, doing what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God.
First, he did something. He got himself moving.
He broke out of the Paralysis of Analysis.
The DRA Player can always think of reasons why something won’t work. Mr. DRA wants to wait until the plan is virtually bullet proof before it gets launched. Problem is, not much gets done. I was Mr. DRA in my younger Christian days about witnessing. I heard lots of gospel presentations and found something wrong with them all. My mentor finally said to me, “Seth, I’d rather share the gospel with a method that may not be perfect than your method of avoiding witnessing altogether.” B-I-N-G-O.
Hezekiah followed one of the most evil kings in Israel’s history, King Ahaz. Notice Hezekiah set himself to “doing” something about the awful situation he was confronted with. He took it a step at a time, doing something “good,” doing something “right” and doing something “faithful” “before the Lord his God.” He looked past the Mr. and Mrs. DRA’s in his life who would be detractors and determined to do what he could for a new audience, God.
2 Chronicles 31:21 In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked whole-heartedly. So he prospered.
Second, Hezekiah broke the DRA Barrier. How? He sought God, seeking to please Him, serve Him, focus his attention on God’s purpose. He then threw his heart into his endeavors “whole-heartedly.”
I have my own DRA Barrier to break through. The DRA Barrier gets taller and thicker the more I try to please people. The more I set my eyes on God and His purposes, seek to please Him, and throw my heart into that endeavor, the smaller the DRA Barrier gets.
Hezekiah: First action: get started, jump off the diving board, get out of the stands and into the game, hit the beach, small steps, but get moving!
Second attitude adjustment: ultimately you are serving God and pleasing Him! Not yourself, not others. And throw your heart into the arena. Take the lead. Set the standard. Take a risk.
I’ve noticed that when I have a DRA coming on, it’s generally going to get worse before it gets better unless I immediately give it to God. Now before you think I’m being simplistic, I will confess that I rarely do this. I think my problem, and it really is a problem, is that I thing I deserve to have my little pity party (though I usually prefer to consider it righteous indignation.) How do I fight off the urge to sit and “stew in my own jucies” for a while?
Wow, DRA’s huh? I have NO IDEA what you are talking about. That NEVER happens to me. Okay, those of you who know me can now stop laughing. I know all to well about DRA’s. Especially my own! For over a year I prayed for God to change my heart and rid me of my dirty rotten attitude. The wasted energy, the drain unto others around me….Imagine the work I could have done for God’s Kingdom, had I not wasted so much time and energy having a bad attitude. As always, God was faithful, but it did take longer than I hoped it would have. His timing, however is always perfect. I must not have been ready any time sooner. God did not just one day change my heart, he sent someone into my life that was the antithesis of person with a DRA. A woman with a true servant’s heart. A woman who sought first His kingdom and His righteousness. A woman who’s life was a life of service. She did not just serve, however. She served joyfully and gratefully. She was the Lord’s servant and a woman who I longed to become. I praise Him for sending someone to come alongside me and show me what I was missing in my life. God has changed my DRA. He has shown me that an attitude of serving with gratitude, is what is needed for peace and joy.
“I am the Lord’s servant” Luke 1:38
“PITY PARTY”
Yup, I’m a great host. I can throw a GREAT Pity Party.
When I know it’s time to LEAVE my Pity Party, my FIRST STEP is to “dump out the garbage in God’s dumpster.”
A real-life example: “God, sometimes I hate living on planet Earth, and THIS is one of THOSE times. It gets sooooooo frustrating doing the BEST you can and there always seems to be SOMEONE (names and faces omitted to protect the guilty) who silently passes over the good things that happened and immediately goes to the ‘Why didn’t we do such-and-such?'”
That’s one of my recent trips to God’s dumpster. It helps me to get my DRA “out in the open” and helps me begin to see through my perceived “noble-ness” behind my DRA.
I had a major DRA coming over me as I drove to work on Thursday last week. I was thinking about my upcoming day, and how fed up I was with a colleague, who just did not seem to see the world through my eyes! I was deciding whether to escalate my frustration to his boss, or to another collegue, when I remembered the post that Adrienne left after Seth’s post on FIRST. It reminded me that perhaps I should be asking myself what Jesus would want me to do, and how could I be a blessing to this colleague in this situation, instead of a thorn in his side. I actually changed from a downward spiraling bad mood to a very pleasant mood – excited to see how God could use me.