A better additude

I was browsing through some blogs the other day, reading comments. My eye was drawn to one reader who was commenting on her need to have a "better additude". Now my inner-teacher immediately started to criticize the poor spelling (What do they teach them in these schools?) and given that the comments were riddled with bad spelling, poor grammar and little to no punctuation, I had a lot of fodder for my critique!

But throughout the day the "better additude" statement kept coming back to me. God has been rebuking me lately for my pride and I realised this is one area where I tend to let my prideful attitude take over. Instead of putting others down for their spelling mistakes, I should be so thankful that I was able to receive a good education. I really do want to change my attitude so that I'm not so critical of others.

Even once I'd reached this point, it kept niggling at me. Additude, ADD-itude. What I should be striving for is to have a heart that adds to those around me. Do my conversations build others up? Do I add or do I subtract from others lives? I'm sad to say, I don't think I have been adding. I'm prone to getting caught up in negative thinking and feeling that my choices, my way of doing things is better. But "it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no-one can boast." It doesn't matter to God how good my spelling or anything else is- what matters is if I have faith in Jesus.

So, I'm pledging to have "a better additude" from this point on. To strive to build others up. And to remind myself when I get judgemental, that it is only by God's grace that I'm saved!