Are you a negative person? At times, we all are. And that’s a problem. Negative means to be gloomy, pessimistic, seeing the bad in everything (and often everybody). To be negative is to drain positive energy — not only from those you encounter, but from yourself.
Did you ever notice how when a negative person enters a room the entire dynamic changes? Or when we speak negatively? Something happens when we’re suddenly pointing out the bad in every subject that arises and picking apart everyone who’s mentioned.
Observe the aftereffects: it actually affects the feel of the room.
It’s one thing to point out problems. We can do that (and often need to do that) with love and gentleness. It’s another thing to be negative, which is a lack of love — and bears spiritual repercussions. When we wish something well, it flourishes, while a negative thought darkens the landscape.
Negativity gathers clouds. It collects a storm. What is lightning but a large negative charge?
Think of it as plus and minus. Plus gives. Plus has energy. Plus looks like a cross.
Negative, on the other hand, is missing the upright (is incomplete, a minus) and vacuums goodness out of us.
It especially vacuums away grace. This happens because when we’re negative we distance ourselves from what might be called the “stream of life.”
You’ve heard of Heaven and the living waters? Same thing. The stream is the positive crystalline flow from God. It’s what enlivens us. It’s what sustains us. It’s also what propels miracles. It’s nourished not by thunderstorms but by gentle rainfall.
Seen by those who’ve glimpsed eternity, and in Scripture, the stream of life is a pure flow of love. We receive it in proportion to how positive (and pure) we are.
When we’re negative, we actually change the spiritual atmosphere. It becomes gloomy. There is a “dark cloud.” And dark attracts dark. Instead of kindness, there’s cynicism. Instead of humility, pretension. Instead of faith, there is doubt.
And this can attract everything from disease to accidents.
Ever wonder why so many things are going wrong?
Negativity puts a blotch in our spirits that can transmit into the physical.
We can always rationalize our negativity. Yet in all but the most crucial instances — crimes, abortion, gross immorality — it’s a hollow argument. Even when there’s cause to point out faults, it’s wrong to become harsh. Expose evil but do so in a way that is not obsessive.
Positive means to feed. It’s to bolster. It’s to give what we have received so that more is given. It’s like a river: to be fresh it has to receive good water at the same time that it releases good water (so that the flow continues). A positive flow keeps things fresh; a negative one is stagnant.
Everything we encounter and everyone we meet are tests of how positively we react.
Maybe “practice” is a better word: the Lord sends situations our way so that we can practice being kind, tolerant, good, and positive.
These characteristics prepare us for Heaven, where we will see the stream of life for ourselves and discover that whether healing, or happiness, or security — whatever we may need — it’s that “stream” that sends the wonders.
[Resources: Michael H. Brown retreat: Florida and Louisiana]
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