Good morning, world. Things are looking pretty good from the front porch of my farm in Virginia today. It’s cold and a little windy, and the sky is filled with snowflakes, reminding me that winter is here and Christmas is just around the corner. If it were up to me, I’d open the floodgates of Heaven, and I’d bury the farm knee deep in snow because that’s a beautiful sight to see from where I sit. As I was giving my Praise and my Thanks to the God of the snowflakes, I thought about how just one little change could bring forth a totally different outcome…for the weather and for my Life too. There’s absolutely nothing I can do to change the outward circumstances like the rain or the snow or the state of the world, but changing the inward…changing ME…is well within my control with the help of the Living God. “By the grace of God, I am what I am.” Isn’t that the way you see your life, too?

It can be so easy for some people of Faith to get caught up in the outward things, but they open themselves up to a totally different outcome when they do. Some people are more focused on the condition of the world than they are on the One Who Created it, and they fight against the Master Plan in the process. That “one little change” will rob us of Peace as we determine to fill ourselves up with worldly things we cannot understand. Some people obsess over things like not having enough money or not having a fit body, and some obsess over their outward appearance as if God made a mistake when He knit them together. But God holds the world in the palm of His hands, and He NEVER makes a mistake. That “one little change” is the difference between living a Life overflowing with Gratitude – “by the grace of God, I am what I am” or living a life filled with criticism over the work of the Master’s Hands. It’s when we focus on the inward…the things we CAN control…that life overflows with Beauty from the inside out and everything else falls into place with Perfection. Living with the Inside out is the Key to Peace and Joy.

That one little change…” By the grace of God, I am what I am” is a way of giving Praise and Thanks to the God OF all FOR all. By the grace of God, I am His child, and by His Grace, I accepted Jesus Christ as Lord. By the grace of God, I have a sound mind and a good Heart, and by His grace, I have control over what I do with both of them. By the grace of God, I’ve lived a turbulent life that came with lots of Lessons, and by His grace, I share the Wisdom I gained through the turbulence with the world. By the grace of God, I had the strength to raise up a godly generation…and the Wisdom I asked for every day…and it’s by His grace I now live to see the legacy of my Faith in my grandchildren. It’s by His grace that I am healthy and strong and that I’ve been given a Voice to share Him with the world. It’s by His grace I found humility…the kind of humility that recognizes that “there is no good thing in me apart from Him.” By His grace, I will finish the race like the Champion He created me to be, and by His grace, I will spend all of Eternity with Him.

Today I won’t lose sight of the fact that “By the grace of God, I am what I am,” and I’ll be thanking Him all day long, no matter what, because of it. The Bible says, “I am confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,” so I’ll let Him keep doing that “good work in me” and I’ll do my part to be found worthy on “the day of Christ Jesus.” None of that is possible unless I focus on the INSIDE out instead of those outside things I have absolutely no control over. I’ll let the Master take care of the world, and I’ll keep reminding myself that it’s ONLY by his grace that I am what I am.

How about you?