Herein lies one of the reasons the incarnate Jesus appeals to me so powerfully. He is such a quiet, orderly, and patient person in the face of adversity. His “serenity” originates with what he completely controls: the affairs of his own heart. When the people of his hometown turn again him, he disengages without a word. In a Galilean storm, he chooses to rest his eyes. On an early morning while others sleep, he quietly communes with his Heavenly Father. On the cross he forgives hateful people.

In his mysterious divine/human way, the Savior seems in perfect touch with what he must—by choice—accept and what, at the moment, he cannot (or chooses not to) change.

Accepting things I cannot change is about surrender. There come those times where one simply surrenders and adapts to the realities around him. One friend calls this “living around the situation.”

On the other hand, there are those things that can be changed, and the list usually begins with the unChristlike attitudes and behaviors that coat one’s inner life. As one writer puts it, “Quit talking about changing the world until you’ve found a way to change yourself.”