John C. Maxwell, in his book Your Road Map for Success, writes that “The quality of your life and the duration of your success depend on your attitude, and you are the only person in this world with the power to make it better.”

So, is that true?  As I think about those words I want to immediately say, “Wait a minute!  I know from my experience and from God’s Word that only the power of God can change me.”  And, that is true.  After opening his letter to the Romans saying, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes”, Paul later talks about his struggle to change in life and says, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”  And his answer to his own question was, “Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Undeniably it is only in Christ that I can truly change and be changed!  But then I reread the quote from Maxwell and I notice some qualifying words there that make me rethink where my mind has taken me.  He says, “you are the only person in this world with the power.”  Now, that changes things a bit.

While I am convinced by experience and the Scriptures that God’s is the true transforming power in life, I am also reminded that God’s power to change is activated by my personal decision to let him.  And, no one can decide that for me.  My parents couldn’t when I was growing up.  My employers couldn’t as I entered the workforce.  No friends have been able to make me change.  My good and godly wife can’t.  They simply weren’t, and aren’t, powerful enough.

And I have discovered I can’t do it for my children, when they were young, nor as I have learned now that they are grown.  I have also discovered that I can’t make anyone else around me change – not my neighbors, not those I have worked with, not people I work around or hang around with.  I just don’t have that power.

Which brings me to this conclusion… again.  There are things in my life that need to change and be changed, and God alone has the power to bring genuine transformation into my experience.  But, God has chosen to give me the free will to decide if I will let him apply his divine power to the area of my life that needs to change.  And so, I really am the only one in this world with the power of choice to make it happen.  And, so are you in your life.

So, what do you think?