Life is full of things we don’t have and dreams unfulfilled. But life is also full of things we can be thankful for. How we look at life can often be summed up by “is it half-full or half-empty?”  

Most catchphrases or sayings we use have stories behind them. We use them in everyday life but rarely know their origin. Here is the story behind one saying that near and dear to my heart. During one pre-season football camp at Millersville State College back in the 1970s as the team left the campus in the wee hours of the morning on the way to the Marine Corps Base at Quantico to “toughen the boys up,” the bus drove past a large cemetery, and as the head coach pointed to the rows and rows of tombstones that looked somewhat eerie though the early morning haze, he looked back at a bus full of “happy campers” and said, “Men, it really is a great day to be alive.” The response, somewhat sarcastically, “Okay, whatever you say Coach”

Every season after that year during the hot and tiring days of pre-season football camp, Coach Carp as we affectionately called him, would walk through the dorms at five o’clock in the morning blowing his whistle and yelling to us, “Men, it’s a great day to be alive.” With sore and tired muscles, and the thought of another full day of practice during the dog days of August, it really didn’t seem like a morning to be thankful.

Let’s look at Psalm 100.   

“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who has made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”

No matter what you are experiencing in today: whether it be the dread of another day of practicing in full football pads in 90 degree weather or the joy of being on a sunny beach with nothing to do except sit under your umbrella and read your favorite book, whether you face another day at a job you do not like or you begin a new job, your dream job, whether you face more chemo treatments or you just got a clean bill of health from your doctor, I want to encourage you to take time be thankful and to praise God, even if you are not in a thankful or praising mood.

Knowing that some of you reading this are facing real life challenges, and I am not minimizing those issues, I pray for a touch from God, a word from God, the presence of God, so you can say “It’s a great day to be alive!”

And remember this, even if your glass if half empty, it is also half full! It is a matter of perspective.

Do you feel like life has you spinning out of control? Think back to when you were a kid and you went to the playground. You and your friends were on the old rusty merry-go-round when someone yelled “faster!” Soon it was spinning faster and faster and the centrifugal force was trying to throw you off, but you hung on to the handles ever so tightly. Everything around you became blurry and that good luck penny you always carried with you flew out of your pocket and landed somewhere on the ground. When the merry-go-round finally came to a stop you were dizzy, disoriented, and maybe even a little sick in your stomach. But soon you were back on that merry-go-round once again yelling “go faster!”

Today, do you feel like you are on that merry-go-round, spinning faster and faster, with everything flying out of your pockets?  And you just hope when things stop spinning that you are not dizzy, disoriented, and sick in your stomach. You collapse in bed, exhausted and worn out, only to find yourself once again back on that dizzying ride tomorrow. Sound familiar?  

Now contrast that image with one of a studio potter using a pottery wheel to make something beautiful out of clay, the finished product called a vessel. The potter takes a glob of clay, puts it on the wheel, then uses his or her foot to spin the wheel while forming the clay with their hands, taking great care to keep the clay just the right wetness so it can be formed and re-formed, and eventually, a ceramic vessel, maybe even masterpiece, is made. The shaping of the clay using this wheel method is called “throwing” pottery, derived from the Old English word thrawan, meaning to “twist or turn.” (Much of today’s ceramic pieces are mass produced using a jiggering machine.)

During the forming process the wheel is always spinning, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, with its speed determined by the potter. And, maybe most importantly, the potter’s hands never leave the clay, because if the potter were to ever remove his hands, the clay would fly right off the wheel and be ruined. If the finished vessel does not meet the specifications of the potter, the process starts over again until the vessel turns out to potter’s liking.

The Bible tells us that God is the potter and we are the clay. In Isaiah 64:8 we read these words; “Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all work in your hand.”

Jeremiah 18:1-4 says this – “This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ‘Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message.’ So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.” So, just what is the message? First, you must remain soft and pliable so God can form you and re-form you. Secondly, you can have confidence that God, your Master Potter, always has His hands on you, forming and re-forming you. And lastly, whether your life is spinning slowly or seemingly spinning out of control, trust that God has not, and will not, ever let go of you!

So, just what is the message? First, you must remain soft and pliable so God can form you and re-form you. Secondly, you can have confidence that God, your Master Potter, always has His hands on you, forming and re-forming you. And lastly, whether your life is spinning slowly or seemingly spinning out of control, trust that God has not, and will not, ever let go of you!

As you look back over the last year, when not much has been normal, do you find yourself asking, “How in the world did I get here?” You find yourself in some situation and you are not sure how you got there. Over time you neglect your physical health and then one day you look in the mirror or get on the scale, and it hits you, you are overweight and in poor shape. You continue to buy stuff using your credit card, until one day you wonder how you will ever pay the balance off. You neglect your spouse or kids, only to find yourself distanced from them, wondering what happened.

The same can be said of your relationship with God. You begin to neglect your spiritual life, just little by little, until one day you wonder how you got so far away from God. You begin to do things your way rather than seeking God’s guidance, only to eventually find yourself in a mess.

Picture it this way. You and friends are in a sailboat, enjoying a day at sea. As it gets dark you find a cove to anchor the boat for the night, keeping you safe and secure while you sleep. One problem though, you forget to drop anchor. While you and your friends are in the boat, it slowly drifts out to sea. From inside the boat, you cannot feel this movement, but after hours of not being anchored, the boat has ended far away from shore. In the morning, you climb up to the deck, only to be horrified to find yourself in the middle of the ocean, not even knowing where you are, let alone how you will get back. Failing to anchor your sailboat has allowed it to slowly, almost unnoticed, drift away from safety.

The writer of Hebrews gives us this warning – “We must pay careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away” (2:1.) How we drift from Christ is addressed later on in Hebrews, but here the point is simply to stress that drifting has disastrous consequences – you wake up one day and find yourself drifted outside of God’s will, trapped in sin, guilt, doubt, defeat, maybe even hopelessness.

The rebellious spirit in all of us, due to our sin nature, causes us to naturally drift away from God. It takes commitment and continuing work to not only stay close to Jesus, but also to strive to become more like Him.

How do you get back to land? How do you stop the drift?

Begin by making a decision to not live that way any longer. Realize that you are drifting and be willing to change course. Repent of your disobedience. Then ask God to, by His great love, power, grace, and mercy, to begin to change you and draw you back into submission to Him. Anchor yourself to the Word of God.

Today, if you find yourself drifting at sea, and we all drift from time to time, look to God to help you begin the journey back into His good and perfect will.

I often ask God to lead me to a verse that He has for me. I then meditate on that verse, sometimes it even ends up as a post.

Yesterday, as I worked out on the treadmill, Jeremiah 6:16 came to mind – “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it…’”

I asked myself this question – Okay, why walk that way? The verse continues, giving me an answer- “…and find rest for your souls.”

Sadly, the end of that verse says this- “But they said, ‘We will not walk in it'” (6:16b).

The context is the Israelites were being judged for their straying from the ways of the patriarchs into the ways of idolatry; i.e., they “lost their way.” They stood at a crossroads; the moment called for a clear decision. The “ancient paths” literally means “the good way.” Read the rest of that passage (6:16-21). The nation rejected the ancient paths, even as prophets were sent as watchmen to warn them of impending danger.

Now that you know the context, and remembering that no biblical text can mean more to us than it meant to the original readers, how can we apply the words of 6:16 to us today – in this time of so much unrest and uncertainty, in this time when rest for our souls seems like wishful thinking, in this time when for most of us, daily rhythms are anything but rhythmic, in this time when there are potentially so many roads we can take as the country begins to re-open.

Here is my stab at an answer – Every day we stand at one crossroad or another. Will we take the way of obedience or the path of selfishness (disobedience)? In His grace and through His mercy, God warns us of pending doom, pending struggle, pending frustration, by taking the wrong path.

I hear God saying to me, I have a choice. He is reminding me that my true and lasting rhythm comes from me listening to His heartbeat and allowing my rhythm to beat in unison with His. And it also comes from periods of rest and more time just me and God, which helps me hear His heartbeat, His voice, His plan. My rhythm, your rhythm, comes from overflow, not overwork. Overflow from the Holy Spirit, overflow from Jesus, overflow from God, overflow from staying on the ancient paths.

What might Jeremiah 6:16 be saying to you? If nothing today, that is perfectly okay.

I am sure that you are familiar with the advertising commercial that ends with “I’m Tom Bodett for Motel 6 and we’ll leave the light on for you.” [In case you have ever wondered who Tom Bodett is, he is an NPR radio host, voice actor and author.] Leaving the light on for someone is a sign that you care about them, that you are waiting for them, and that when they arrive, you welcome them into your space. When we know someone will be coming to our house after dark, we leave the front porch lights on for them. I am sure you do the same.

Tertullian, who was a second century Christian apologist and author said this: “Hope is patience with the lamp lit.” Right now, maybe you face a life situation that is challenging, making it difficult to be hopeful. Everything you dreamed of, and hoped for, hangs in the balance, and discouragement floods your soul. You have been waiting and waiting, and today you find yourself impatience and tired of waiting. You have been praying for God to move in a particular situation, but so far, it seems from your point of view, that the light is not on, and God has gone to bed.

Hope refers to a feeling of desire for something to happen, with a real expectation that is could happen, but still with some level of uncertainty. When you plan a day at the beach you hope for sunshine and not rain. Or maybe you have planned a trip to the art museum and as you get in the car you say – I sure hope it isn’t too crowded when we get there.

The Bible has quite a lot to say about hope. But unlike the way we use the word hope in modern conversation and vernacular, biblical hope does not convey any level of doubt. . It is not pie in the sky wishful thinking. Instead it has as its foundation a confident faith in God. Instead it has as its foundation a confident faith in God. In the Old Testament the word hope most often comes from a Hebrew word meaning “confidence, safety, or security.” In Psalm 62, as David talks to his inner soul, we find that confident expectancy – “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken” (vv.5-6). The word hope in this verse comes from a Hebrew verb that means to gather into strength.     

Psalm 42, in which the psalmist wonders where his hope has gone, ends with these hopeful words – “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (v.11). [This Hebrew word for hope, while slightly different than the one in Psalm 62, still implies the same thing – a confident waiting,  to tarry (linger in expectancy).]

And turning to the New Testament, we read these words in Hebrews 11:1 – “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” The word hope in that verse is the Greek word elpizō which means to fully expect, count upon, place confidence in. In other words – there is no doubt about it!   

So, the way I see it, biblical hope is not a feeling, it is a reality. Biblical hope is not wishful thinking, it is an assured and confident expectation, a sure foundation upon which we can base our lives. Biblical hope is looking forward to, and trusting in, all that God has promised. Biblical hope is knowing that even when you are walking (or waiting) in darkness, you have the absolute certainty of a loving and faithful God. Biblical hope is standing at a door where the lamp is always lit!

Following God’s perfect plan for your life isn’t always a smooth journey. Yes, among other good things there will be overflowing joy (Psalm 4:7) and fullness of life (John 10:10). But there will also be tall mountains to climb, deep valleys to ride through, narrow rickety bridges high above the ground to cross, storms that will “rain on your parade,” hot dry deserts that will leave you parched, and raging rivers ready to drown you. Sometimes you will need to zipline through the trees.

You will likely have more questions than answers. God often works in ways that just do not make sense. He asked Isaiah to walk naked for three years (Isaiah 20:1-3). Instead of quickly and decisively attacking Jericho, God told Joshua and the Israelites to walk around the city for a week (Joshua 6:1-4). In Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers (37:26-28) and later on, imprisoned by Potiphar on trumped up charges (39:1-20).

You will be asked to run when you just want to walk. There will be rest stops when you really don’t want to rest and detours that seem out of the way. And there will be times when you want to sing “Thanks for the advice, but I’ll do it my way.”

We find these words in Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Never rely on what you think you know. Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way” (GNT).

So, today I ask you – Do you trust God enough to follow His plan, His path, in every situation, even when it doesn’t make sense or looks too difficult? God promises to be with you in every situation, in every decision, at every fork in the road, on every narrow bridge. The name given to Jesus – Immanuel – means “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23, which fulfills prophecy found in Isaiah 7:14)

Ask God today for the gift of ever-increasing faith so He can put new lyrics in your heart; lyrics that sing, “God, I’ll do it Your way!”