The question for a disciple of Jesus Christ is not whether the glass is half empty or half full, but rather why isn’t the glass full? And not just full…it should be overflowing. God’s extravagance is always with us, as His sheep, it is always available to us. We should always have overflowing cups! It doesn’t matter whether we are having the best day in our lives or the worst year in a lifetime. Can I get a Year 2020 “Amen”!

I am not talking about an annoying Pollyanna sugarcoating of evil or a head in the clouds denial of bad things happening to us. I am talking about thriving in the bad…in the evil. We can do that. We are actually commanded to do that. We have thousands of years of saint (aka; sheep) witnesses who have done exactly that. I think the disconnect for us is that we have traded in God’s “My cup overflows” for the American version of self-reliance or as Oswald Chambers calls it, self-awareness.

My cup overflows. Psalm 23:5c

In the timeless devotional, “My Utmost for His Highest” August 19/Oswald Chambers…

Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances. Yet it is never God’s will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs our rest in Him must be rectified at once, and it is not rectified by being ignored but only by coming to Jesus Christ. If we will come to Him, asking Him to produce Christ-awareness in us, He will always do it, until we fully learn to abide in Him.

One of the clearest proofs that the Bible is true; both spiritually and historically, is the uncompromising honesty found in the Bible. There is not one biblical hero (as we call them) who has it “all together”, other than Christ, of course. And just for the record, Jesus is no mere hero. So, let’s keep the King of Kings out of that demeaning category, please!

Anyway, the history of the people in the Bible was not sugar coated. They were all basically a mess and in need of a Savior. The basic difference in the lives chronicled by the Bible are those who realized they were a mess and needed a Savior (Sheep in God’s Pasture) and found their cups overflowing in spite of themselves and circumstances. And those people who were a mess, but either didn’t care or didn’t want to acknowledge their messiness and therefore did not look for their Creator, so not in God’s Pasture, and no overflowing cups. And that is all of the human race in a nutshell. One is either in God’s Pasture as His Sheep or one is not.

Can we thrive in bad days? In a bad year or years? For the sheep of God’s pasture, the answer is a resounding…YES!!

The steps of a man are established by the LORD and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the LORD is the One Who holds his hand.  I have been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or their decedents begging bread. Psalm 37:24-26