Are you glad to have a glass?

Question: ‘Are you a glass half-full type of person, or is your glass half-empty?’ Answer: ‘I am just glad to have a glass.’ That comment, which I heard shortly before Christmas, has stuck in my mind.

It is stating the obvious, I know, but as we live through another lockdown, it is tempting to focus on the liberties lost and freedoms curtailed, when there are many good things still to celebrate.

Not least of these is hope, another word that is used a lot in these days.

We hope the vaccines will make a difference; we hope things will get better; we hope our children will get back to school; we hope the planet can be brought back into balance; we hope.

But where is the ground for hope? Science and human skill?

A talk on the radio a few weeks ago, before Christmas, spoke about gifts and posed the question that the vaccines that have been developed might be God’s gift to humanity this Christmas, and the skills of the scientists ultimately come from God.

Because for people of faith the ultimate hope is in God, who is the source of life and who Christians believe came to earth in Jesus to show us the way forward.

‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son…’ John 3:16

Where is our ground for hope? Surely the power of love is our only hope, the steadfast love of the Lord who ‘never leaves us nor forsakes us’ (1 Kings 8:57) and is with us every step of the way.

Just be glad you have a glass.

Reverend Steve Fulcher, Church of Scotland – South Kintyre Team Ministry.