Is your mug
half empty
or
half full?
That is the question…
Or is it?
Don’t get me wrong, it is a question worth
exploring. However, making a definitive choice as to
whether you are an optimist or a pessimist, a risk
taker or a passive player in life, might get in the
way of seeing, well, the mug.
Isaiah 64.8
8 Yet, O Holy One, you are our God;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
Whether we are half full or half empty, spilling
over or run dry, we are shaped by God’s creative
action, not for destruction but into something of
worth.
John 4.10
10Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of
God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a
drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have
given you living water.’
God’s desire is to fill all of us with living water.
What is needed from us is to simply make ourselves
available.
John 2.1-10
The Wedding at Cana
2On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of
Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2Jesus
and his disciples had also been invited to the
wedding. 3When the wine gave out, the mother of
Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 4And Jesus
said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and
to me? My hour has not yet come.’ 5His mother said
to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ 6Now
standing there were six stone water-jars for the
Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or
thirty gallons. 7Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars
with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim.
8He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to
the chief steward.’ So they took it. 9When the
steward tasted the water that had become wine, and
did not know where it came from (though the servants
who had drawn the water knew), the steward called
the bridegroom 10and said to him, ‘Everyone serves
the good wine first, and then the inferior wine
after the guests have become drunk. But you have
kept the good wine until now.’
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Some days we are half full. Other days we are half
empty. But everyday we exist in the image of a God who longs to fill
us up. The wonder of the transformation God brings about in our
lives is that, like good wine, it continues to improve with age. God
is not absent from us. God is with us, filling us up with grace and
mercy and above all, love.
The thing about what is inside our mugs is that it must be shared to
be appreciated and understood. We must give to it to others to drink
for it to be fully enjoyed.
So, as you reach for that mug or cup or whatever it is you are
drinking from, consider this…
that God has shaped you as an empty cup, has filled you with living
water and is transforming you into something beautiful…
[Pastor Adam Quine, First Presbyterian Church of Lincoln] |
