A key change doesn’t require a large shift on the scale or grandiose measures. Did you know that a half step can make all the difference? A small change can create some beautiful music.

To appreciate a key change, you don’t need to know music theory. A listener can hear the transition in tone.

Every now and then life calls for a key change. Without it there is little music produced, for a piece puts out true beauty not from the fixed notes it embraces but rather from the subtle modulation we experience.

Life is packed with opportunities for you to take the stage on some major and minor scales, but you won’t get far in a performance if you’re not willing to embrace a key change.

The key change is your perspective. A slight shift in how you view life’s circumstances will make all the difference. When someone uses words you didn’t expect or reacts contrary to the culture’s perception, that’s a result of changing perspective.

If you want to stand out in the crowd and survive with your dignity among life’s situations, it’s going to require a key change in perspective.

Your circumstance, that cross you’ve been called to carry, looks different than mine.

You could be performing mundane tasks in a job, when you may be suited for much greater work.

Perhaps you’ve been cultivating the same field, nurturing a dream year after year, even though it yields no harvest.

Or, you may be called to walk through this world with a smile while your heart secretly breaks inside.

There are so many crosses we carry and every one of them is painful.

Outwardly this cross may appear destructive, but inwardly its spiritual work is planting the richness of a blessing deep into the soil of your soul. Many of the blessings you inherit are the fruit of sorrow or pain.

Jesus on the cross, redemption itself, is the world’s greatest blessing and was produced through the greatest pain.

The Apostle Paul made a key change. He learned how to be content whatever the circumstances. (Philippians 4:11)

The attitude we live with is what determines our growth in God. This isn’t about being fake. The key change in our perspective is trusting God when other people are getting what we want.

Growth doesn’t happen when you remain with the same heart in the same place. A harmonious arrangement in life calls for a key change in perspective.

Where is that place that presses up against your threshold of yesterday? Where do you need to die to your own will, pride and sin and surrender at the feet of Jesus the very things that keep you proud and strong?

The charm of a broken spirit leaves us with an imprint of the cross. There’s a fragrant aroma of brokenness and humility that rises after it’s been touched by fire. Make the key change to transform the song of your sorrows into a beautiful melody of redemption.

Do you trust God so much that you absolutely do not want anything that He doesn’t want you to have? That’s perspective. That’s the key change in your mind that will take an ordinary song and dance and create a signature that’s all of you glorifying all of Him.

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Key Change: A Minor Change on a Major Scale by Trisha Keehn first appeared on LiftUpYourDay on September 23, 2016.