Change a Bad Wrong Attitude

My sentiment and attitude for most of my life--even after becoming a Christian--which all my 4 children unfortunately experienced was "Go ahead, make my day." What my children felt about my attitude was "as if I didn't give an f... about what people felt or thought." Sadly, I didn't mind it and sometimes still do not, due to my own stubborn insistence on my own rightness.

But over the past decade or so, I am intentionally trying to change that, based on:

• "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone" (Rom 12:18), and
• 
  "For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man" (2 Cor 8:21).

Yet a favorite verse of mine is

• "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me" (1 Cor 4:3-4).

My life should not be affected by what others think of me, since I should be more concerned about what God thinks of me. So, yes, I shouldn't care how others judge me. But I do judge myself, for I'm often acutely aware of my sins, which never entirely goes away. So my conscience does bother me and I can only avail myself to God's judgment and God's mercy.

Even as I fail often, I desire to live with a heart of "fear and trembling" before God (Phil 2:12), and with "humility and tears" (Ac 20:19), and by my faith and conviction of one "who loved me and gave himself to me" (Gal 2:20).