Faith meets Science

Positive, Negative or Neutral - Which one are you ?

"Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him." - Romans 15:2

Do you have any "negative people" in your life? I'm not scientific. I don't know how to do a scientific survey. I should have paid more attention in high school science class. None of these truths, however, kept me from doing a survey this past week. I was beginning to notice how contagious negativity can be and how dangerous negativity is to the Christian walk. I don't consider myself a negative person. That being said, when people around me grow increasingly negative, it begins to wear me down over time. I lose my perspective. My patience begins to fade along with my smile. Before you know it, I'm in an all out, tug-of-war with satan for my joy. Can you relate? So for one full week I just listened. I listened to people throughout the course of my day. I listened to people on the radio, in the grocery store, at the airport, around the office, at restaurants, in the doctor's waiting room. Pretty much everywhere I went I was taking mental notes. I began tabulating the scores in my head. Now, I remind you, I'm not scientific, but do you know what I heard? By the end of each day I calculated that almost 70% of the things I heard come out of peoples' mouths were negative. Only about 20% was positive. The remaining 10% made no sense. I couldn't characterize it either way, some of God's children are just plain weird (myself included probably), so we'll just call it neutral. I couldn't believe it, but it is the truth. Some comments were just plain rude, others passive aggressive (subtle but just as deadly) and others were just frustrated, emotional responses to life. Some people had nothing nice to say. Others had nothing affirming to offer. Still others could talk about nothing except themselves. Literally, each day I could count on one hand the number of affirming phrases I had heard, and those usually came at home or at the office. Thank God I have a holy family and that I work for a ministry with people who actually pray! The whole "survey" pushed me (like many things do) back to Scripture and to today's verse.

In this translation of the Romans passage up above, the word we are given to express God's command is to "edify". I like that word. The dictionary definition of edify is "to instruct or improve someone morally or intellectually". Wow, that's boring yet insightful.like most dictionary definitions. What I usually find far more interesting is the etymology (the study of the origin of a word's meaning) of a word, it usually tells you far more. The word "edify" comes from the Latin, aedificare, which means "to build" or "to strengthen". It's where we get the term, "edifice". St. Paul wasn't speaking to Romans about constructing a building with stones but about building up "the person, the body of Christ" through words, morally and spiritually.

If I had asked you at the beginning of this blog, if you are a positive person or a negative person, you probably would have automatically (without thinking) said, "positive". And hopefully that is true. If I told you, though, that being positive means more than "not being negative", would that change your response? What if we lived by God's truth and St. Paul's pen, knowing that being "positive" means to be authentically edifying in your speech, on a daily basis? In my prayer, I have to look at myself. Maybe "not being negative" doesn't necessarily mean I'm positive. Maybe I shouldn't consider myself "positive" if I'm not proactively edifying (building up) the greater Body of Christ. Maybe, just maybe I have some work to do in this area. Wow, maybe I should have paid more attention in science class! To be really, painfully honest with myself, I'd say that some days I'm positive (proton), some days I'm negative (electron) and some days I'm just oblivious (neutron) and self-absorbed (which can quickly go from neutral to a negative).

How about you? God has a solution for you. and He gives it through His Word, pray it again.
"Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to edify him." - Romans 15:2