What’s in Your Cup?

 There’s a motivational message being circulated, I saw it on Facebook, that gave me a lot of encouragement in these past couple of days.

The author is unknown and I will reiterate here that I didn’t write it, but will amend as I present it to you. And some of you might have seen or heard it before as well.

I trust that everyone here will be inspired to reflect on our attitudes and responses to the challenges of life.

Imagine this scenario: You are holding a hot cup of bush tea when someone bumps into you, making you spill your tea everywhere.

Question: Why did you spill the tea?

Most of us would say, "Because someone bumped into me!" Wrong answer!

Here’s what up! You spilt the tea because there was tea in your cup!

Think about it. Had there been juice in the cup, you would have spilled juice. Right? So whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out. Get it? Got it!

So here comes the spiritual analogy: When the difficulties of life make you feel like you can’t take it anymore and you want to give up, very often you find that the frustrations inside of you will burst through. This may manifest in temper tantrums, alcohol and or drug abuse, promiscuity, or just a don’t care attitude living any old how saying whatever comes to mind to whoever.

On the other hand, there are folks who become extroverts and go around being happy go lucky, pretending that all is well. But guess what, it’s easy to fake it, until something happens to really shake them up. And then you see a seemingly perfectly happy person one day and the next you hear they are a vagrant, in the hospital psych ward, in a mental institution or even dead from a heart attack or brain aneurysm. 

Family, every day the Lord, in His wisdom, speaks to us, encouraging us to take stock of our lives.

So today we are asking the question, “what's in my cup?"

When life gets tough, what spills over? Joy, gratitude, peace and humility? Or anger, bitterness, victim mentality and quitting tendencies?

The motivational message reminds us, and we know this all too well, because we each have similar challenges, that life provides the cup, but we are the ones who choose how to fill it. 

When we come upon an unfortunate situation in life, don’t play the blame game. Let’s examine and re-examine ourselves. And go to the Word of God.

Psalms 23: verse 5 reading from The Message version of The Bible - ”You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies. You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing.“

God, our Creator, is saying to us, that we don’t need to be depressed, sad, feel defeated or unworthy, even if our enemies team up against us and fight us non stop every day.

That’s what I got. 

Because we must believe in our God and know for a fact that nothing and no one can bring us down. I’m not saying that we can’t get sick, or we won’t lose our jobs, or our marriages won’t break up, or we won’t get in an accident or nothing bad is going to happen to us.

Our attitude when the flaming darts of life are thrown at us, is what will help us through to the other side.

And so the reflection today is calling for us to look at what’s in our cups. What does our cup represent spiritually? As some preachers would say, I’m glad you asked. Our cups represent our hearts, our minds, and our souls - each significant and unique in developing our relationship with God and others.

Proverbs 4:23 advises us to keep vigilant watch over our hearts as that’s where life starts. When our hearts are surrendered to God, He transforms us into vessels of love and aligns us to do His will.

The mind is where all of the thoughts begin that can turn into actions, good or bad. So we must use our minds to get a better understanding of the Word of God, which teaches us how live in obedience to God’s will. 

Romans 12:2 - Fix your attention on God so that we can readily recognize what He wants for us - the best - and quickly respond to it. 

And Philippians 4:8 - Fill your minds and meditate on the things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling and gracious, the best not the worst, the beautiful not the ugly, things to praise not things to curse.

Our soul now, makes up the sum total of who we are. And we were born with a longing  to connect with God.

Jesus told us - Mark 8:36 - What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for? 

So we should make sure our souls have that intimacy with God through prayer, praise, worship, Bible Study, fellowship with likeminded believers and service to others.

We see then how important it is to make sure our cups - our hearts, minds and souls - are filled with everything good, the best, in fact.

What’s in your cup? Or more specifically, how pure is that which is in your cup? Because each of us has a heart, mind and soul. So the question really boils down to how pure is that which is in our cups? 

Remember, our cups are vessels waiting to be filled. We should pour in faith, hope, and love, not things like worry, fear, and doubt.

Remember, what we fill our hearts, minds and souls with, significantly defines how we face the challenges of life. 

So do a self check today. What are you pouring into your cup? Stuff that is giving life or stuff that drains your spirit?

We must pay attention to each ingredient in our cups, so that we can deepen and not hinder our relationship with God.

When our relationship with God is strengthened, we can then experience the fullness of God’s presence and fulfil His purpose for our lives. 

Let Jesus fill your cup. He promises in John 4:14 to fill our cups with water gushing fountains of endless life, and we will never thirst again.

Today, Family, at the start of another day, we are challenged to surrender our hearts, renew our minds, and nurture our souls, as we make it our aim and determination to drink from our cups filled with nothing but good things. 

Good things such as gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, resilience, positivity, kindness, gentleness and love. 

Amen.

aub - 8 April 2024

www.zjoyvi.com