Saturday Devotions: Empty to Fill

Four of them, hair combed, clothes neat, shoes dry and clean, to the pediatrician for two physicals, and then to the pharmacy for eczema cream.

A pouring out.

Home for lunch.

A pouring out.

Four of them to Aldi's for meat, bread, eggs and other staples. Then to the rummage sale around the corner, searching for a new-used girl's bike.

A pouring out.

Four kids who usually get along, but cranky now from errands, fighting, with one carelessly tossed hand causing a bloody nose in the van.

A pouring out.

Dishes, laundry, paperwork, while fielding nearly constant interruptions.

A pouring out.

Evening meal, more laundry, dessert, baths, stories, teeth brushing, riding herd on kids who don't really want to go to bed.

A pouring out.

Listening, worried, to details about Husband's possible nerve pain post-surgery. Reading afterwards that the nerve pain takes time, often much time, to improve.

A pouring out.

A three-year-old unable to discern dream from reality, waking three times in the night, once telling me she never wants to eat cake again. Another time telling me she didn't get any gummies. A third time she gets out of bed, stumbles, crying, on her way to the playroom for her piglet--the one her dream convinced her she'd lost forever.

I keep soothing her but each time, it takes time for her to settle. She doesn't believe me that her thoughts? They're but dreams.

A pouring out.

Finally, I have nothing left.

Just emptiness, a watering can long dried out.

And there's still the dinner dishes, soaking, waiting for me to go out at some time during the wee hours to finish the job.

Before it all starts again for another day.

As hollow as a long-fallen log. That's me.

And I rebel in my emptiness. I complain. Thankfulness? It's out of my reach, like the supple skin from my twenties. I need quiet time so badly, I tell my husband. Uninterrupted quiet time. Time with the Word, so my thoughts and God's heart can intermingle.



For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19

So I can be filled. Filled with all the wisdom and loving-kindness I'll be called to pour out in the next 24 hours.

Life, it feels unbearable, doesn't it, when we falsely assume we're bottomless pits of giving?

We run out of love. We really do.

But God, he never does. He's always there, ready to fill us to overflowing. If we'll just make that full stop.

Isaiah 66:1-2, it tells us who He wants to fill.

“Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool.  Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest?  “For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being,” declares the LORD.  “But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word. (Isaiah 66:1 – 2) 

The Lord wants to dwell in whom? In a humble person with a contrite spirit. Is that me? Is that you? 

Do we get it that we run out of love? Do we really get it that without God, we're nothing? Do we get it that we're too sinful to pour out for others, outside of his grace and filling?

Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the Lord will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you. (Isaiah 60:1 - 2)

Contrite = feeling or showing sorrow and remorse for a sin or shortcoming

Humble = not proud or arrogant; modest: having a feeling of insignificance, inferiority, subservience, low in rank, importance, status, quality

Our decision to make a full stop and sit at the Lord's feet? It comes out of a humble and contrite spirit. Exactly the person He wants to fill.




For what were we created?

For Love. To receive it from our Creator, then to give it out to the created, in awe and humility, out of a reverent heart and a contrite spirit. God desires this intimacy with us--this mutual giving and receiving. He gives love and we give him our hearts, then we glorify him by loving others in His name.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love (1 John 4:7 - 8 7)

Your quiet time with the Lord? It isn't just another thing you should do.

It's what you were created to do.

photos here