[Steve Myers] You probably haven’t heard of the OK Syndrome or the Oklahoma Syndrome. What is it? Well, if you’re a music fan, in the musical Oklahoma, Curly rides in on a horse to begin the program, and he sings. You know what song he sings? “Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day. I got a beautiful feeling…” Now, why does he have a beautiful feeling? He says, “Everything’s going my way.”

Now it’s interesting when you think about it. Do you find yourself caught up in the Oklahoma syndrome? That’s not a good thing. The musical’s great, but this idea is absolutely contrary to what the Bible teaches. Is our attitude, is our approach to life dependent upon everything going our way? You see it shouldn’t be. As God’s people circumstances should not impact our outlook. It can’t. We’ve got to have a spiritual outlook on life. The Apostle Paul pointed the way in Philippians 4, and I think it’s in verse 11. He says this, “Not that I speak in regard to need,” but he says, “I’ve learned in whatever state I’m in to be content” (Philippians 4:11).

So you see everything cannot be based on the fact that it’s all perfect, it’s going great for me because sometimes it’s not going to be going great. And yet he tells us we need to be satisfied. We need to be content. We need to realize that our value and our direction and our attitude in life needs to come from God and not from our surrounding circumstances. So whatever state you find yourself in—now it may not be Oklahoma, maybe it’s Ohio like we are here—wherever you are, whatever state, whatever condition, whatever circumstance is happening in your life, let’s strive to be like the Apostle Paul and let’s be satisfied, let’s be content because we know that attitude, that approach comes from God.

That’s BT Daily. We’ll see you next time.