Is Your Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

Psalm 116:12-19

 

Are you a “glass is half full or half empty” type of person? Do you see the positive side of everything or the negative? At times, it’s easy for me to be a half empty person. I complain about my doctor’s office visit co-pay, when I’m fortunate to have insurance at all. Actually, I think human nature tends to operate this way. We like to complain about what we don’t have. It’s called covetousness.

 

The psalmist was a half full type of person. He asks this question of himself: “But now what can I offer Jehovah for all he has done for me”? And then he answers it: “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord”.

 

Throughout Scripture, the cup functions as a metaphor for an individual's life. In today’s passage, the psalmist “lifts up the cup of salvation” as a thank offering to God; in essence he is offering the sum total of his life to the Lord.

 

Jesus used the symbolism of the cup also at very significant times. During the Last Supper he shared the cup of wine as a symbol of his blood that he was about to shed for us. “Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”.

 

Later that same night, Jesus uses the symbolism of the cup in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will”.

 

In both of these passages, Jesus uses the cup as the totality of his life; of his purpose; of who he is and why he came.

 

Actually, no matter how we look at our life - whether it is half full or half empty – let us be like the psalmist and offer all that we have to our Lord. Let us offer our cup, our life – mind, body and soul – to Jesus. Let us offer to him all that we have; all that we are.

 

Then we can echo Paul’s words to the Romans: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship”.