But there's an atmospheric pressure. The weight of the air has an atmospheric pressure. You go into the sea, the further down, you go the greater the pressure of that environment on you, so the atmosphere naturally exerts a pressure on us that affects us, and unless you've got something inside you to be able to withstand it, you'd collapse as well. Okay then, so there's natural atmosphere, and it's quite distinct and tangible. You can feel the atmosphere. Today it's quite sticky. Everything, you know, you do a little bit and then you're sticky and gluggy and you feel uncomfortable and go and have a shower - need an air con in here, that's what we really need [laughs] okay. So now let's just talk about some different kinds of atmospheres. Obvious one, if you go into Taipei or Thailand, you'll notice all of the policemen wear these masks, because the atmosphere is polluted. You can't see it, unless you look around in the sky you can see it, but it's polluted, and it will affect their health.
So remember atmosphere then, is the prevailing influence that's around; atmosphere can't be seen, but it can be felt. An atmosphere can affect your whole life, your quality of life. You can either thrive in it, or be destroyed in it. Atmosphere gets polluted, it affects you very, very seriously. This time of the year you get a lot of pollen in the atmosphere. You don't see it unless you look on your car in the morning, but even though you don't see it, it affects your eyes, affects your nose. So the atmosphere has effect on us, so that's just a natural atmosphere, but then there's other kinds of atmosphere. How many of you have walked into a home where there's been a death in the family, and immediately you felt a tremendous grief? You can feel it. What are you feeling? How can grief be felt? It must create an atmosphere, spiritual atmosphere that comes in on you, and you feel it. You can think of other kind of negative sorts of atmosphere - we're not talking the natural atmosphere, we're now talking about the mood, or the environment around you. Just start to think of some atmospheres.
I had one of my daughters, Sarah - she wanted to go to cricket, one of these cricket matches over in Napier, and my brother said you're not interested in cricket. Oh, yes I am! He said no you're not, who's playing? Oh, oh - she didn't have a clue who was playing. He said why do you really want to go? She said well I love the environment, the atmosphere, the excitement of all the people. So when you get in a crowd at a football match, it gets incredibly exciting. What is it? The whole atmosphere changes. It becomes changed. You change the atmosphere. You can actually feel it, and it affects you. You get into that, and you get excited. You can go into places where there's negativity and pessimism, where everyone's gloomy. Have you ever met someone who's very, very gloomy? Have you noticed that when you get around them, after a little while it affects you? Their influence, their spiritual atmosphere that they're carrying, now is coming in on you and it's starting to affect you. If you don't do something they'll be the prevailing atmosphere, not you. Think about that.
I remember we were in a cafe, it was the funniest thing, and we'd just been in a move of God, in the presence of God ,and carrying the presence of God - went into this cafe, and there's this old farmer there. He and his wife are sitting there. Well every time he opened his mouth he was negative, but we'd just been in the presence of God. We'd just had these great meetings and God was around, we were carrying the presence of God. We began to start to laugh, and the more we talked and laughed - then it became a while, every time he opened his mouth he would be negative, and we would laugh. We just were killing ourselves. In the end we were just roaring with laughter in our seats, just laughing, and just the whole humour of it all, and after a while it overcame his talking, and he began to laugh. He began to change, and when we left he and his wife were still laughing.