My Cup Overflowing

God fills the cups of our lives – we’ve all had different lives, haven’t we, just like cups – they have different purposes, different styles, and they are different sizes.  (You might notice that mine is broken but then I suppose we all are in a way.)

There are a lot of references to cups in the Bible.  Some of them refer to cups of sorrow, or wrath.  But many of them refer to cups of blessing.  I’d like to talk about those cups.

There’s a song that Ron and I love – it speaks of a cup that is overflowing with God’s blessing.  One of the lines is “I'm drinking from my saucer ‘cause my cup has overflowed.”

What is in your cup, if you're a follower of God?  In the fourth chapter of John, we find this reference to something overflowing – the water of life.  Jesus promised living water, and He said that this living water would flow - welling up to eternal life.  He said that if we ask Him, and if we drink from the water He gives us, we’ll never be thirsty again.  

The things that this world holds are not satisfying.  But things don’t last, do they?  In this world, there are never enough things to fill the cups in our lives – but there’s always enough of God.  He doesn’t hold back His love, His presence, or His promises. 

 John 15:9 (NIV)  If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 

If we love God and keep close to Him, we will have joy – overflowing.  Our prayers, in Jesus’ name, will yield more joy than our lives, our cups, can hold. 

God will give us love overflowing.  The earth is filled with God’s love.

Psalm 119:64 (NIV) The earth is filled with your love, Lord, teach me your decrees.

God gave the children of Israel joy and laughter.  They were on filled with it.

Psalm 126:2  (NIV) Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

And God has done great things for us.  He will give us joy as well, to the point where our cups overflow. 

I expect there are days when you wonder where that joy is – it’s no different with any Christian.  There are days when we don’t feel happy on the surface, but we can have happiness or joy deep within our hearts.  We can have satisfaction, knowing that God is in control of whatever is making us unhappy.  So I guess I’d have to say we can be happy and unhappy at the same time.  He fills our hearts, He fills our cups with joy – we just need to decide to drink of that joy.   

1 Thessalonians 5:16 (NIV) -  Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Empty

Do you ever feel empty – like there’s nothing in you anymore?  Sometimes I do.  It’s like my heart doesn’t have any energy to live or love, or even feel.

But today I want to look at that feeling – that feeling of emptiness in a different way. I feel that being empty is not always a bad thing. because we find that 

when we’re empty handed, God fills our hands.

when we can’t do something, God can do anything.

when we don’t have the strength, God does. w

hen we're empty we find that we depend on, and get to know our loving Father.

When I think about being empty, I think about a cup of coffee.  I love my coffee.   If the cup is ½ full and it’s been sitting around and cooled off, when we fill it up with fresh hot coffee – it makes all the coffee in the cup luke-warm.  But when the cup is empty and we fill it with fresh hot coffee – it’s wonderful.   So maybe we need to empty ourselves – to get rid of the idea that we can handle things without God’s help.  We struggle to solve our problems ourselves, when resting on God’s goodness and love is really what we need to do. So much of the time we have the idea that we can do it on our own.  Maybe when we realize that we don’t have the answer to the troubles that haunt us – when we realize that our storehouse is pretty empty, then we can open our hearts and minds to what God wants us to know so that He can fill us.

When you think you’re in control, you become so full of yourself that there is no room for God to come into your heart and fill you.

We read in John 4 that Jesus talked to a woman at the well.  When He asked her for a drink, and she wondered why He, a Jewish man, would ask her, a Samaritan woman for water, this is what John writes.

Jesus answered her. "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself,. . . ?”

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water (in the well) will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus said that if we fill ourselves with Him, we will never be empty.  He will become our spring of water welling up to eternal life.  As we fill our minds with the knowledge of our Savior, as we trust in Him to provide Love, and friendship, comfort, strength and peace, we will feel the warmth of His unfailing care and we will be filled.

Empty is when there is nothing left but God and you discover that God is all you need.

Well my friend there is an answer to the yearning for a meaning,for a reason - for a purpose.  The answer comes in emptiness.

That empty place within your heart -

unoccupied by pride in self,

is ready now for Christ to fill,

is ready now to know His will.

Unless we give control to Him

the zest for life is stilled.

Unless we know our helplessness

we never will be filled.

Excerpts from a Touching Lives devotion by Diane April 2015