Today I was riding on a bus here in Mexico City, riding out to visit the Pyramids that are of Antiguity. On my way there I had the opportunity to see a huge dump with people living all around it in shack-like conditions, at best. I also saw this dump and these houses yesterday as well. As I looked at the people all around, I was reminded that my eyes can view that situation in two different ways; a glass half-empty or half-full. I can see the poor living situation, ignore it, and move on. OR I can view it as a situation fraught with opportunity for people to help out and better the lives of those who can NOT do so on their own, and try in whatever ways God opens for me to be a part of the help and solution. We often view life situations as a glass half empty, and miss that, while the glass is half-filled, the open space of the glass offers opportunity to be filled to change the situation of the half-empty glass to be an overflowing glass.
Today God really used the dump and shacks to draw my heart to once again think of the children Abogar International Ministries is working to impact for God’s glory. While they have no families, often live in the streets or dumps, and have many people who give them no opportunities nor believe in them… I believe that they each are fraught with potential to be amazing members of society. They are God’s treasures and precious children, whom He loves immensely and asks us to love too. Think about how investing in these children’s lives NOW will help them to have a better future! We can pour forth into their half-filled ‘glass’ of life, and help them to be overflowing with life and God’s plans.
While we, here at AbogarIM, don’t and wont do it perfectly, we are committed to pursuing God’s purposes for the lives of these children… that they will know that they are loved, have incredible worth, and can be so much more than stereotypes and society throughout the world may expect of them! I am so happy that early on in my life, in the midst of abuse and pain beyond description, God reached down and placed in my life a woman who really knows God’s love and shares it! She revealed to me the inherent worth God has placed in me, and the potential that this ‘half-empty’ glass of water had! As she taught me about God pouring out His love on His children, I received a well of living water in my ‘half-empty’ cup that now overflows with rivers of living water for God’s glory.
That woman could never have known that her acts of kindness to a dirty, broken, and sinful little boy would one day help lead him (me) to start an organization that would touch and impact the lives of needy children throughout Latin America! It was just one half-full cup that she poured into, for the glory of God. While many saw my life as a ‘half-empty’ glass, she stepped out in obedience and faith, saw a half-full glass, and poured forth into this glass to help me become an overflowing glass of living water for God’s glory! There are tremendous treasures stored up in heaven for her, when she joins Jesus there!
I challenge us to be more mindful of how we think. In the time on the bus today, God reminded me of the children who are sex-trafficked, forced to be children soldiers, are maimed and have extremities amputated solely so they can help the begging industry in some third world countries, are abused, neglected, and abandoned, and other children in horrific situations around the world. While God has specifically called Abogar International Ministries to be pouring into the ‘glasses’ of children who are orphaned and/or living in the street and youth at risk throughout Latin America, I challenge you to ask God to clearly show you what ‘glasses’ He wants you to be pouring forth into for His glory! It may not be Latin American youth. It may not be sex-trafficked children, children soldiers, the abused and abandoned, or children at all… but I guarantee if we ask Him to reveal to us what ‘glasses’ we are to pour forth into, He will faithfully show us! Changing one life, filling one glass, could impact the world for God’s glory! Lets think and see as God does, and use our lives to pour into the spaces available in the ‘glasses’ (lives) of others!
