Sirach 13:1 “Whoever touches pitch gets dirty, and whoever associates with a proud person becomes like him.” Today's episode talks about how important it is to be intentional about who we spend time with. We become like those we spend the most time with. It is also important to guard your thoughts and emotions. Don't let other people's bad moods stick to you. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
People are Sticky
Sirach 13:1 “Whoever touches pitch gets dirty, and whoever associates with a proud person becomes like him.”
This entire chapter in Sirach is titled Caution Regarding Associates. Each verse describes different types of people or different types of relationships you might have. I liked this first verse because the way Father Mike described it left a distinct picture in my head. It was a visual that I won’t forget. I think if we can attach visuals to what we are learning it helps us understand them better. First, let's talk about what pitch is. Pitch, in the chemical-process industries, is the black or dark brown residue obtained by distilling coal tar, wood tar, fats, fatty acids, or fatty oils. Pitch is sticky. When you touch it, it stays on your hands and then gets on everything you touch. When I heard this I thought of the tar baby in Brer Rabbit. That rabbit got tar all over him.
The thing that Father Mike said that really stood with me was, “people are sticky.” The verse talks about how if you touch pitch you will get dirty. Then it talks about how if you associate with a proud person you will become like that proud person. I agree with Father Mike, “people are sticky.” If you hang around with someone long enough, you will start to become like them, even if you don’t want to. It usually happens slowly, and often times without us even being aware of it. We hang around someone who is negative all the time and eventually we start to complain more than we used to. We hang around with someone who likes to go out to eat and we start to go out to eat more often. We even start to talk like those that we hang around with. If you don’t believe think about the people you spend the most time with. Do they have any things they say often? Do you say those things now? One of the people I follow on social media used to say 100 % every time she agreed with something her husband was saying. For instance, he would say something like “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to what happens to you.” And she would say “I agree 100%” or she would just say, “yes, 100%.” After watching their morning show for quite awhile I started to say 100% a lot as well.
This is why we are called to be careful who we spend the most time with. We need to be intentional not only about how we spend our time, but also who we spend our time with. I am not saying you shouldn’t spend any time with those who are negative. You may have family members that are negative and you can’t just not spend any time with them. If this is the case for you I would say just try to limit the time you spend with them. Also, try to bring some light into the darkness of their complaining. Maybe point out the good things or the positive things in their situation. Also, sometimes if they get talking about a certain thing they can get pretty negative, try to change the topic.
If you can’t avoid the negativity and you can’t really escape it, for instance, my husband and three boys were all pretty negative for awhile. I lived in the same house with them, so avoiding them wasn’t really an option. In this case, I tried to fill the time I wasn’t with them, when they were at work, or at school, with positive people. I would listen to uplifting music, I would listen to audio books that would lift my spirits, I would do Bible studies. We are in charge of our own thoughts and we are in charge of who we hang out with for the most part. We are in charge of how we feel.
That is another way people are sticky. Oftentimes, we can get stuck with other people’s moods. We can wake up in a great mood, have a great morning, and then walk into work feeling great. However, if someone we work closely with is in a bad mood, their mood can be contagious. It can be the same if our spouse or our children are in a bad mood. This is something that can happen if we aren’t paying attention. If we are around someone who walks into work and had a bad morning their attitude rubs off on us. Now all of the sudden our good mood lessens and we start to feel anxious and grumpy but we are not sure why. Has that ever happened to you? It would be nice if it happened the other way. It would be nice if your good mood rubbed off on your coworker that was having a bad day. This can happen sometimes, but more often than not the bad attitude is the one that winds up spreading. I am not sure why this is, but I wonder if it is because we are going on autopilot.
I wonder if the bad mood spreads faster than the good mood because we are all just kinda going through our days on autopilot and not really being present in the moment? If we aren’t intentionally guarding our thoughts and moods then the enemy can easily come in and turn them negative. He can get us to think about all that is wrong in our lives instead of all that is right. I know some of you listening have some pretty heavy stuff going on in your lives right now. It is easy to find all that is going wrong in your lives. However, I want to challenge you to try to find a few things that are going right. Can you find 3 things that you can be grateful for today? It doesn’t have to be three things that have to do with your situation. We don’t have to be thankful for our terrible situation, but we can be grateful for something while going through it. For instance, when we were really struggling with my son, I would be grateful for the few hours he was at school. I would be grateful God put people in my life that were there for me and would listen and give me hugs when I needed them. I was grateful for the times Tony, my husband, would take the boys somewhere for the weekend so I could recharge my batteries.
The enemy doesn’t want us to know this, but I will let you in on the secret. We can actually have control over our thoughts and our feelings. If we don’t like how we are feeling, we can change our thoughts and feel differently. The enemy wants us to continue to feel helpless because that is when we are most vulnerable to him. We are never helpless because we are children of God. God will put people in your life to help you through difficult times, and all you have to do is let them help you. Accepting help can be hard, but not as hard as doing it on your own. We seemed to have veered from the whole people are sticky idea, which means the Holy Spirit knew someone needed to hear this message today. If you are struggling, please let others help. I know trusting people can be hard, especially if you have been let down before. Try to trust people anyway. Pray for God to bring people into your life that will help you, people that will lift you up and not bring you down. Pray for people in your life who are filled with God’s light. Pray for people whose love and light are contagious.
Remember, no matter what the enemy tells you, you are in control of your thoughts and emotions. You have the power to change your emotions by changing your thoughts. I have talked about this before and I don’t want this episode to be too long, so I won’t go into details, but basically, if you are having feelings you don’t like, ask yourself, “What story and I telling myself?” and then change that story to something you feel better about. For instance, when I feel frustrated and sad with my son because of the choices he is making, I examine the story I am telling myself. When I do that I realize I am telling myself, “if he continues to make these choices he won’t have a good future.” However, we have no way of knowing this is true because our God is bigger than my son’s choices. Once I realize this I change my thoughts to, “I may not like his choices, but nothing is too big for God to overcome.” This helps change my emotions and I find comfort in the fact that God can do anything and I release the worry over my son to God. I put him in God’s hands and then I don’t need to worry.
I know this is just a brief overview, if you would like more clarification on how to change your emotions, reach out and I would be happy to help you. The main thing to remember is to be intentional about who you are spending time with. Guard your thoughts and emotions and be intentional about what you are thinking about. Also, remember that people are sticky. If you spend a lot of time with people who don’t have similar values, your values may start to change into those of the people you are spending time with. Also, guard your mood. If you are in a good mood, try to intentionally spread that good mood, instead of getting stuck catching someone else’s negative mood. Romans 8:31 says, “If God if for you, who could be against you!” You can do this, you can take control of your thoughts and emotions.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, you are amazing and we are so grateful for you. We are grateful for all the wonderful people you have put in our path over the years. We are grateful for those you gave us in a season where we really needed them. Lord, we ask you to help us guard our hearts and minds against those who are negative or who wish us harm. Lord, help us to spread your light and love into the world and let that overcome the darkness. Help us to guard our mood when others try to bring us down. Help us to guard our thoughts against the enemy. Help us to live more intentionally and less on auto pilot. We love you Lord, you are incredible. You are the almighty king of peace and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day.