Read Ecclesiastes 3:22

We usually can do very little to change our lot. We can only change our reaction to our lot. 

We cannot change our past, for example. I don't care how brilliant we are, our past stands in concrete. We cannot erase it. 

But we can learn today to see our past from God's perspective, and use the disadvantages of yesterday in our life—today and forever.

You and I constantly bump up against people submerged in self-pity. They are hopelessly lost in the swamp of life. And all they can tell you is how wrong this was, or how unfair she was, or how someone's promise was broken, or how that man walked away and left "me and the kids," or that guy broke up a partnership and "took me to the cleaners," and on and on and on.

But Solomon says, in effect, "I suggest to you that there's nothing better than that you look for an advantage and then dwell on it. Make that your life's message. Who knows what impact it will have?"

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom for the Way (Nashville: J. Countryman, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.