What’s in Your Cup?
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This past Saturday, 26 women from four different churches gathered together for our Overflow Women’s Day.
The very next morning, our church began revival.
And this coming weekend, 17 of us will head to Fort Caswell for our women’s retreat, Beautifully Broken.
So to say this has been a full season would be an understatement.
But sitting here thinking about everything happening over these few weeks, I keep coming back to something I shared with the women Saturday.
“You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Psalm 23:5
And since this is The Kitchen Table, I think we need to talk about that cup.
We’re Pretty Good at Pouring
Most of us have heard the saying:
“You can’t pour from an empty cup.”
There is certainly some practical truth in that.
Especially for women.
We pour into our husbands. Our children. Our grandchildren. Our parents. Our jobs. Our churches. Our friends. Our ministries.
We keep pouring a little here and a little there until sometimes we look down and wonder:
What in the world is left for me?
But while I was preparing for Overflow, something struck me about Psalm 23:5.
David doesn’t say, “I worked really hard and managed to keep my cup full.”
He says to God:
“You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”
God is the One doing the filling.
And I wonder how often we spend so much energy trying to keep our own cups full that we forget where the filling actually comes from.
So grab your coffee, tea, or whatever happens to be in your cup today, and think about four words with me.
Empty. Surrender. Fill. Overflow.
EMPTY
Jesus says in Matthew 11:28:
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Notice what He doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say, “Get yourself together first.”
He says:
Come.
Come weary.
Come burdened.
Come tired.
Come when you have been pouring yourself into everybody else.
Come when you feel like you don’t have anything left.
Sometimes we think being spiritually exhausted is something we need to hide.
But here is something I told the women Saturday that I think is worth repeating:
An empty cup isn’t useless. An empty cup is ready to be filled.
The question is where we go to be filled again.
Because there are a hundred places we can try.
We can scroll. Shop. Eat. Stay busy. Binge another show. Plan another trip. Throw ourselves into work.
We can even throw ourselves into church work.
And still be spiritually thirsty.
Jesus told the Samaritan woman in John 4:13 and 14 that everyone who drank from that well would thirst again, but the water He gives becomes a spring of water within us.
There are things in this world that will satisfy us for a minute.
Jesus satisfies something this world cannot reach.
So while you’re sitting with your cup today, ask yourself:
What have I allowed to fill space that belongs to God?
SURRENDER
Here is where it gets a little harder.
Sometimes the problem isn’t that our cup is empty.
Sometimes it is already full.
It is just full of the wrong things.
Worry.
Resentment.
Disappointment.
Unforgiveness.
Fear.
Comparison.
Plans.
Noise.
Ourselves.
And then we come to God and say, “Lord, fill me,” while we are still holding tightly to everything else.
David prayed in Psalm 51:10:
“God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
He wasn’t asking God to change everybody around him.
He was asking God to do something in him.
That has been especially important for me to remember this week.
We went from Overflow straight into revival, and next comes our women’s retreat.
It would be easy to move from one Christian event to another and spend the entire time thinking about what somebody else needs to hear.
But maybe the prayer needs to be:
“God, search me.”
Psalm 139:23 and 24 says:
“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me; lead me in the everlasting way.”
That is surrender.
Not, “Lord, here is the part of my life I’m comfortable giving You.”
But:
“Lord, search all of it.”
So here is the second question:
What do I need to lay down before Him?
FILL
Now we get to the part we like.
Lord, fill my cup.
But what exactly are we asking Him to fill it with?
In Ephesians 3:16 through 19, Paul prayed for believers to be strengthened through God’s Spirit, to know the incredible love of Christ, and ultimately:
“that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Think about that.
Filled with all the fullness of God.
What if that became our prayer?
Not simply:
Lord, make my life easier.
Lord, take every problem away.
Lord, make everybody behave.
But instead:
Lord, give me more of You.
Fill me with Your Word.
Fill me with wisdom.
Fill me with compassion.
Fill me with patience.
Fill me with courage.
Fill me with peace.
Fill me with grace.
Fill me with love for the people I don’t naturally find easy to love.
Fill me with a hunger for Your presence.
And there is something else I realized while preparing for Saturday.
God isn’t some pitcher sitting in heaven waiting for us to attend enough Christian events so He can top us off.
Our relationship with Him shouldn’t look like:
Revival refill.
Retreat refill.
Sunday morning refill.
Then somehow try to survive until the next one.
Jesus describes something much greater.
In John 7:37 and 38, Jesus speaks of those who are thirsty coming to Him to drink and says that streams of living water will flow from within the one who believes in Him.
Not a few drops.
Streams.
So here is question number three:
What am I asking God to do in me?
Not my husband.
Not my children.
Not my pastor.
Not my church.
Me.
OVERFLOW
And finally, we get to the word that started all of this.
Overflow.
God doesn’t fill us simply so we can walk around showing everyone how full our cup is.
The blessing isn’t supposed to stop with us.
If God fills me with grace, someone else should receive grace from me.
If He fills me with patience, someone else should experience that patience.
If He fills me with His Word, His truth should affect the way I speak and live.
If He fills me with compassion, someone who is hurting should encounter compassion through me.
And if God revives my heart, eventually somebody besides me ought to experience the evidence of that revival.
That is overflow.
Suddenly Psalm 23:5 becomes more than a pretty verse to put on a coffee mug.
“My cup overflows.”
Because when something overflows, it doesn’t stay contained.
It reaches whatever is around it.
That is what I want.
I don’t want Overflow to have been something we attended last Saturday.
I don’t want revival to simply be a series of services we attended this week.
And I don’t want Beautifully Broken to be nothing more than a nice weekend at the beach with some wonderful women.
I want God to use all of it.
But even more than that, I want to remember that I don’t need a women’s event, a revival service, a retreat, or even Sunday morning before I can meet with Him.
I can meet Him right here.
At the kitchen table.
With an open Bible.
With a cup of coffee.
On an ordinary Tuesday morning.
And so can you.
Maybe today, before you get up from wherever you are sitting, spend a few minutes with these four questions:
EMPTY
What have I allowed to fill space that belongs to God?
SURRENDER
What do I need to lay down before Him?
FILL
What am I asking God to do in me?
OVERFLOW
Who needs to experience more of Jesus through my life?
I think that last question may be the one I carry with me the longest.
Because I don’t want God to simply fill me for me.
I want what He does in my heart to reach my home, my family, my church, my community, and the people He places in front of me.
So today, whether your actual coffee cup is full, half empty, cold because you forgot about it, or sitting in the microwave for the third time, maybe this can be our prayer:
Lord, fill me until my life overflows with You.
Until next Tuesday,
Laura
Farm Raised • Faith Driven
Roasted with Purpose