I have a friend who has wanted something for a very long time. She has surrendered her desire and has been transformed and healed and filled up and faithful all in the laying down. And now, she is mothering two sweet little girls for one week as part of an amazing program called Safe Families. She is pouring out and she is being poured into. Joy filled her face when I saw her with those precious girls.
I have a son who loves basketball, loves God and wants to change the world. So he wrote an email and asked some people for pledges and spent an hour shooting free throws – much harder than he anticipated – and raised enough money to purchase over 12,000 meals. He had a sore arm, he was sweaty, he was out of breath. He wanted to stop, he wanted to keep just a bit of the cash. (No worries, I wouldn’t let him.) He poured himself out, he sacrificed a morning and a whole lot of energy, and the look of contentment on his face when he was all finished was priceless.
I have a friend who has been helping refugee families for a couple years. She and her husband arranged, sacrificially, to have the two teenage children in their current family attend a youth church camp. She planned and gave up some of her own money and prayed and poured out, and then told me stories of their amazing experiences with happy tears in her eyes.
I have another friend who gives her time away to women who are hurting. She opens her home and she listens and offers Scripture and words of wisdom and grace and gentleness and prayer. She takes what God has done in her life through many difficult circumstances and pours it all out into other women and, being one of those hurting women, I can attest to the fact that she does not seem empty and tired when we’ve finished our time together. She seems just as full of the Spirit, if not more, then when I walked into the room.
You know, it’s occurring to me – in watching these lives and many more – that when you pour yourself out for someone else, you don’t end up completely drained and depleted.You simply, supernaturally, have more room for God to fill you up with blessings and joy and more of Himself.
So, pour and be filled.
