A Cup Half Full

 I'm sure you have heard the question asked as to whether a glass holding water is half full or half empty.  This illustration has been used to determine what kind of person you are and how you view life in general.  Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

I tend to add my own imagery to the picture and ask, who handed you the glass?  Perhaps it was a drink you didn't ask for?  But then this sounds pessimistic. Again, it has more to do with drinking.  I mean sipping from the glass until it is depleted and then what?  Who takes the glass offering to fill it up again and again?

We are now in the days following Christmas gearing up for a New year.  Perhaps there isn't the frenzied chaos of preparation but there is still a sense of urgency.  A sense of expectation as we cross the threshold from what is past and what potentially is viewed as a new and hopeful time of life.  Kind of like sipping the glass nearing the bottom of our drink. Who will take our glass and offer to refill it?

"For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light." - Psalm 36:9

I had this view of strength as something that I received from someone such as topping up a glass with more drink.  I would receive, then sip away until I reached the bottom, asking for more.  But after todays reading, I see things differently.  And truthfully, it feels a bit like leaving behind the chaos of the past year and stepping into the next year with hopeful expectation. But that can only take place if I accept the offer of a new drink instead of adding more to my own,

As the Bible puts it, I am pouring new wine into old wine skins.

The strength I desire, praying for is a good thing.  A fountain of life. Yet the remaining verse states, in "your" light we see light.  The strength I am asking for is obviously from a source higher than I. But if all I'm doing is adding to my own... well then, I am still living off of my own depleted source.  That is until I need another top up.  I'm really only surviving on my own strength seeing the world from my own limited and disproportionate way of living.

Living and working on my own strength only serves to make me weary.  Looking forward to yet another new year without a change of drinking source will only land me back into the same routine.  The same saturated drink called self. What I need is to be fully immersed in that life giving water.

Otherwise, it's a bit like adding cola to orange juice.  It gets murky. It is not very satisfying. Instead of viewing the glass as half empty or half full, I think I will gladly accept a completely new glass.

So I end by saying, cheers to a new year.