We have all heard the half-empty / half-full glass comparison. It is supposed to signify the way we view the world. This picture supposedly proves if you are optimistic or pessimistic. Personally, I think it only proves how thirsty you are!

There is a game I like to play on my IPad – it is a 3-dimensional version of the classic Mah-Jong. 3-D, the board moves up, down, sideways and diagonal-ways. Sometimes, to find the match, you actually have to move the board – the piece is otherwise completely hidden. Sometimes I find even when the match is not actually hidden – just shifting the board helps me see the match that is right out in front of me. All it takes is a change in my perspective to see the whole board totally differently and to gain victory.

Perspective is defined as a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something. Perspective is our point of view. Perspective in our world is shaped by a lot of factors, our upbringing, education, friends, beliefs and even just the type of day we are having. It is grey and cloudy outside and that same slow driver that entertained us yesterday when it was sunny is making us crazy. A boss yells at you and suddenly you have less patience with the people you are caring for – less patience and grace for your own direct reports, patients or customers.

But here is the great news; when you realize that you approach people, decisions, and life based on your perspective – than you know how to make major changes in your life… just change your perspective. That slow driver isn’t keeping you from getting somewhere, he is giving you the chance to slow down and enjoy the journey. That boss that just yelled at you is not a bad, evil, mean person – but probably just got yelled at herself, or she as a looming weight, bad news, bad report – that makes her scared. She needs love and grace, not judgment and returned anger. That diagnosis is not a death sentence but a chance for God to work miracles in your life and for your life to speak life into others.

That is what faith is really. Faith is a daily Change in perspective. Just believing in my God, in His Son and the real / perfect grace He gives to me requires me to have a different perspective than the world or logic dictates. I can’t see Him – but I don’t look for Him through those worldly eyes; I know he is there. Because I have faith, my glass is never half-empty or half-full – Jesus steps in with His supply of living water and fills me full. He covers the difference, the short fall in my life. With Jesus, my glass is always full.

Ephesians 3:16-19 “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so  that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I thought I had a pretty solid faith but a couple things lately have me looking just a little closer at my faith. See, even in faith I was approaching God looking through a lens of limitation. My perspective was impacted by the world’s limitations. God was never meant to be bound by our earthly limitations.

About a week ago, I got some not good news. My grandpa was not doing well. I was told I must make certain I got to see him when I went home for the holiday and that I should be prepared because he looked really, really bad. Every word spoken to me dripped of “he is dying, get your bum down to see him”. I was emotionally rocked. I was afraid he wouldn’t make it until I got home, and that I wouldn’t get the chance to tell him I loved him and that he would pass not knowing that.

Suddenly, my glass was empty. I was empty. I couldn’t get myself out of the emotion to a place where I could give my fears and my heart to God. My perspective was blurred and blinded by the tears in my eyes. But God stepped in and helped me change my perspective. God reminded me that I don’t see Him yet I know that He loves me because of the lifetime of love He has given to me. In the same way, my grandpa knows I love him because I have told him so throughout my lifetime. Suddenly I was so much more at peace – my point of view fully shifted. If I couldn’t get home in time, I would be ok. My glass was refilling.

But God wasn’t done.

Oh how wildly limited was that perspective I had.

God had bigger plans – plans to do way more than just refill my cup.

I saw my grandpa the other day – I made it home “in time”. Turns out, that was the wrong perspective anyway. My grandpa… he looks really good. Instead of being at the end as everyone in my family assumed – they figured out he was taking double the medication he was supposed to take. Once that was corrected – he is doing much better. Yet I hadn’t believed that could be possible.

My faith was small.

My faith was limited by the small perspective I was focused on.

I was talking to a friend about that small faith and how God keeps showing me I need to believe. Believe bigger, because He is greater than everything. I started thinking about faith – about changing my faith perspective. Breaking out of the box I had shoved me and God into. I opened up YouVersion for my daily scripture reading and this is the first thing I read:

Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

Faith is believing.

Believing without any real reason to believe, other than God is who He says He is and is not limited. Believing bigger than our imaginations can even dream.

Believing bigger that someone will be completely healed instead of just “being comfortable’ at the end. Believing bigger; that that the most off track, addicted, broken, hopeless person that we know today will be completely restored and walking with God tomorrow. Believing bigger that a “homeless” church that is reaching thousands in a city where real estate is gold and that gold is hard to find – that church will be given a permanent home and will reach tens of thousands more. Believing for love greater than anything we can earthly imagine.

He tells us as plainly as possible, believe BIGGER.

Matthew 17:20 “He replied, ‘ because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will more. Nothing will be impossible for you.’”

James 1:6 “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.”

Faith.

Believe Bigger!

I am taking that glass I have confined God to and smashing it. I no longer look to God to just fill me – just cover the difference. I am believing bigger. He wants to give me greater gifts than any half-full / half-empty glass could ever hold. And I am standing in faith – believing bigger – for everything He has promised and wants to give me. I ask extravagantly because He calls me to have a bigger faith in His extravagance.

Don’t focus on how full or empty your glass is; smash the glass and focus on how incomparably great your God is.

Believe Bigger!!