How Full is Your Glass?

Is your glass half empty or half full?

Recently someone gave my husband and I a Word of encouragement. She felt the Word was to be given to our church, but she told us that she especially felt this Word was meant for us.

I asked her for a copy of it and read the printed out version a few times. My husband nudged me and smiled when he read the line “Some here are feeling like they may have misunderstood God’s voice.” We both chuckled. I do this.

A couple of lines later was this sentence “Now your finances have bottomed out.”

I contemplated this line. “Well, that’s not us” I told my husband. Every other part of the Word I get…but not that one.

I continued to pray on it through the afternoon. Listening to the voice of God, I hear His still small voice say to me “through the world’s eyes, your finances have bottomed out. You choose not to see it this way.”

Dawning…I get it. Ok, so robbing Paul to pay Peter in every conceivable way (and some not so conceivable), writing out a check for the water bill because it’s due with no grace period and there is still four days till payday…is finances bottomed out?

This is how I was looking at it. “Wow. Danny has had a few good weeks of sales. Things are really looking up. We’re doing great. We’ll have the money to get gas, buy groceries and pay some bills on Friday. Way cool!”

I tend to always see the glass as half full. Sometimes my glass is full and overflowing. I identify will with Pollyanna. Have you watched that movie lately?

This is an excerpt from the movie. The scene is between Pollyanna and the Reverend. His sermon topics centered on preaching hell and damnation…and always centered on the negative. Here is some dialogue from the movie:

Pollyanna: There are eight hundred happy texts, did you know that? (He was studying the Word, preparing for his sermon on Sunday)
Reverend: No, I didn’t know that.
Pollyanna: Yes, well there are. And do you know, my father said that if God took the trouble to tell us eight hundred times to be glad and rejoice, He must have wanted us to do it.

I love this movie. I own it. I watch it every now and again. It’s about a little girl who is orphaned when her missionary parents are killed. She goes and lives with her aunt who is rich, seems to have everything, and yet is soured toward life. She runs the town with an iron fist, everyone is afraid of her and everyone, including the Reverend does her bidding.

Along comes Pollyanna. She’s positive about everything, always finding the good where seemingly good cannot be found. A common phrase of hers in the movie is “I found something to be glad about.”

Being positive is a choice. As is being negative. It is learned behavior. We can choose to see possibility in things. We can choose to find the good versus the bad. We can choose to be joyful. We can choose to believe, and be optimistic.

Nothing gets me more than a person who counters something good, something I am excited about, with information to bring me back to reality. Like it’s their job to keep me grounded!

I came to the point when I stopped sharing exciting news with certain people. Almost always, they would counter with some negative comment.

Being optimistic not only makes you more fun to be around, but studies show that optimists tend to outperform pessimists in all respects.

According to one study pessimists are up to 8 times more likely to become depressed when bad events occur; they do worse at school, sports, and most jobs than their talents would suggest; they have worse physical health and shorter lives; they have rockier relationships.

Really? Why would someone choose to be negative? Not me!

I’ll keep on wearing my rose colored glasses…how about you?