Your Life is Both Half-Full and Half-Empty
A glass half-empty, has always been frowned upon as a pessimistic view of life. Not necessarily. What is the glass anyway?It is our mind or our way of thinking.
Even the Bible says, that it is our minds that will either cause us to be conformed or be transformed (Romans 12:2).
Conform or Transform?
A half-empty view knows we don't have all the answers, it challenges us to be creative to look for solutions. Some people who see themselves as half-empty end-up reinventing the world. A perennially positive view can make us complacent and inflexible.
Take what happened to Kodak and digital photography.As recent as 1976, Kodak ruled the world of photography with 90% share of film sales and 85% of camera sales. They conformed to existing norms of photography.
Kodak was overly positive and only saw the "full" side of the glass. Meanwhile, guys who were hungry and "half-empty" discovered the unlimited potential of digital photography, and transformed it. Today, Kodak films and cameras are nowhere to be found.
Positive and Humble
Kodak's success made them complacent. They were so used to one way of doing photography and were reluctant to try unfamiliar methods. They failed to understand that the change was not in photography per se, but in the way photographs are taken, stored and enjoyed.
Christians can learn from Kodak's mistake. The Gospel does not change, the message of Jesus remains the same. But the way we communicate and connect to people will change through the years. Can you imagine if we still spoke in the language of King James?
So, let's stay positive, seeing the glass as half-full, but, let's be humble knowing the glass is half-empty and there are some things that I can still learn, life is both half-full and half-empty.
Connect to God and to Others
This is what it means when we connect to Jesus: we are in a sense, very positive about life and all it has to offer, for in Him we have been given the fullness of life (Colossians 2:10).
But we are also told that we are to have the faith of little children. Little children, who know they are not experts, but are half-empty glasses, who are open to learning something new.
It also why we connect to others, our experience filled lives obviously have something to offer. But since we also have half-empty minds, we are open to learn new insights from those we connect with.
Connecting with others with openness requires humility that usually brings unity. As the Apostle Paul writes, it is in unity and relationships that we experience the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians. 4:11-13).
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