“Psst….your __________ is showing.” Many women whisper this warning to alert of wardrobe malfunctions and avoid embarrassment. This can be very helpful, but what most of us need even more is for someone to whisper, “Psst….your attitude is showing, and it’s not a good look on you!”

We all know the importance of having a good attitude, but knowing is so much easier than constantly maintaining that right spirit. We can especially struggle to show the right attitude during times of change, busy seasons and prolonged illness. Even during Christmas time, our spirits can become tense and frustrated. The children are arguing over toys on Christmas morning. Holiday traffic is horrendous. Things rarely ever go according to plan so we excuse our crisp reactions and attitudes..

“Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10

After my husband’s health brought us home from the mission field in 2003, we moved to South Carolina and began serving in a startup Hispanic ministry. I printed out copies of Psalm 51:10 and taped the verse on the doors throughout our new home. Not long afterward, my mother came to visit and noticed that the same verse was posted on all the doors throughout the house.  “Did you put that verse up for your children?” she asked.  “No, I put that verse up for myself!” I replied.

It had been extremely difficult to leave Mexico—the mission field I loved and had planned to stay on. When we moved back to the States, I was 39 years old and had spent 13 years in Mexico—one third of my life.  I felt out of place in my own country.

One day, my oldest daughter, Judy, and I went to a mall and watched people walking around. I turned to Judy and whispered, “I feel like an alien here!” I did not understand the jokes, felt overwhelmed with endless luxuries everyone else took for granted, and was bewildered by the universal desire to be comfortable and entertained.

My children also struggled to be content in a new country that had many strange customs to them. I was really the only person who had spoken English to them. Jason came home from his fourth-grade class one day and told me,  “Our teacher told us to use our noggins. What’s a noggin?”

When Julie’s second-grade class sang “I may never take a trip to Mexico” she sobbed to her teacher,  “But I do want to go to Mexico!” I tried to encourage my children to learn to be content wherever God had placed them, but I was really preaching to myself. How was it possible to feel so lonely and isolated during the “most wonderful time of the year”?

I truly believed that I could and should learn to be content wherever God placed me, but the reverse culture shock was severe. I realized I could not have the right attitude in my own strength. I needed God’s help to renew and to keep renewing a right spirit within me.

It would be so convenient if God sent us renewal notices for our spirits just like magazines send notices when your subscription is about to expire. God could say, “Watch out! If you don’t correct your attitude, you are going to hurt your testimony, offend a brother in Christ, or discourage someone from serving the Lord.”

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Romans 12:2

Many times we aren’t paying attention and don’t even notice when our right spirit has evaporated into thin air. We need to pay more attention to the thoughts within our hearts and notice when we are getting a critical spirit, being overly negative, feeling discontented, and complaining. The sooner we ask God to renew our spirits, the better off we will be in our Christian walk.

I can go through the motions with the best of Christians. I can speak the Christian lingo fluently having grown up in church all my life. I can fake it and probably fool almost everyone—but I cannot be a blessing nor be blessed without the right spirit within me!

As we approach the Advent season, can I encourage you to check your heart and your spirit? The joy of Christmas cannot be found in beautiful lights, delicious food, or even in family gatherings. Those things are wonderful, but they cannot fulfill us in the way that Jesus can. We need Jesus to renew our hearts and our minds so that we will be filled with love, joy, and peace.

Recently I have struggled to have the right spirit within me. I think it’s time to put the verse back up on the doors of my home again! I unite my prayer with the psalmist’s: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”