Turning An "Alexander Day" Upside Down

When I was a kid, one of my favorite stories was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. This book was such a staple in my house growing up that whenever someone had a bad day, we termed it an "Alexander Day." It still somewhat sticks when I have a conversation with my mom, brother, or sister, but it isn't as prevalent in my everyday vernacular anymore. That is until a couple weeks ago.

I had "An Alexander Day." It seemed that no matter what I did, it turned out poorly. If King Midas had the golden touch... well, I'm not even going to allude to the kind of touch I had. Let's suffice it to say, I wasn't happy.

I was driving to an appointment and I was in a royally bad mood (remember King Midas' antithesis?). I knew I couldn't go into my meeting as a sour puss at best, so I started praying. The only problem was my prayer wasn't all that sincere. I was skirting around the fact that I wasn't happy. One thing about having an omniscient God is He knows when we're not being open and honest with Him. There should be no mystery that my prayers didn't feel like they were going any farther than my steering wheel. I just felt shallow, or maybe even more appropriately, hollow.

I knew I needed to change my prayer if I was going to be worth anything when I arrived, so I focused on God. Novel thought, eh? Instead of focusing on the stuff I was dealing with, I focused on the positive attributes of God that ran directly opposite to what I was feeling. Instead of spewing my negative thoughts as to how my "Alexander Day" was progressing, I began focusing on positive thoughts of God. My prayer then became a series of words that described the personality and character of God. Words like:

Present

Peaceful

Loving

Truthful

Graceful

Merciful

Forgiving

Eternal

Provider

I went on making my mental list as I drove to my next destination. Within just a few moments, I began feeling much better. It was as though the heaviness of my "Alexander Day" was lifting, and so were my spirits. I had been turned upside down in literally just a matter of seconds when earlier I felt as though my whole house of cards was collapsing.

I have been doing this kind of praying a lot more lately. I'm finding that focusing on the person of God is so much more beneficial than focusing on the person of Mark; after all, I get the majority of my attention anyway. When focusing on God, my attention shifts from glorifying myself to glorifying God. Perhaps this is what Paul meant when he wrote, "Set your mind on things above and not on earthly things." (Colossians 3.2)

Changing the latitude of my prayers helped turn an "Alexander Day" upside down. I would like to suggest you give this a shot; you never know how it might change the way you feel and look at the world! Start making your list -- mental or otherwise -- about the character, attributes, and person of God. If you need any assistance, let me know; I'd love to help.