It is days like today, when the weather is on the dreary side, temperatures are dropping and it’s the beginning of a long week; that I need to keep my focus upward. It is WAY too easy for me to find MANY things to complain about, and FEW things to be grateful for….

Even as I sit here, typing those words I find myself asking…why? Why is it so easy for my thought life to convert so rapidly to flaws? Why is it so effortless for me to forget how blessed I am, why is it so convenient for me to let bad habits creep into my life, and what makes me think that all these thoughts are perfectly normal and justifiable?

The only answer with reason that I can come up with, is that I am a sinner. Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT saying that an attitude of complaint is the right thing to have. In-fact, I am saying it is wrong! VERY wrong! Even with the religious knowledge I have known from childhood, and the undeserved gift of salvation I have accepted and committed my life to; at the end and beginning of every day, I am still JUST a SINNER….desperately in need of God’s grace.

Is it easy to have wrong thoughts, because I am living in a world packed full of wrong thinking?
Someone once told me that Christ-like thinking is like an upside-down piece of toast. When you think about it for a moment, it really does make sense…I PROMISE:)

Toast just shouldn’t be jelly-side down…right? It looks weird, makes things more complicated, and is completely opposite of how we know toast should be served. If you ordered toast in a restaurant, and the waiter/waitress served it to you “upside-down” with the jelly smeared all over the plate, more than likely you would send them back to the kitchen with your food requesting your toast jelly-side up. In the same way, when the “world” sees some one with Christ as their focus, they think…” this just shouldn’t be, they make issues more complicated, they look weird….”  (John 16:33).

All this to say, I am grateful for today, even if it isn’t the ideal day I had in mind.

I am blessed just to breathe.

Here’s to a day of becoming a little bit more like upside-down toast…