Pouring Out Our Blessings Back Onto Him

 I have been reading through the classic devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers and, I think I mentioned this before, it is not an easy read. I usually have to read the same post 2 to 3 times every time.  The language is hermetic, and that causes great challenges for me.  But beyond that, the lessons are just so convicting.  It is not a light reading at all.  Yet, I'm pull to it like a magnet every day.

Today was no exception.  The title is "The Waters of Satisfaction Scattered."  The verse that inspired the author to write this post was 2 Samuel 23: 16 (or should I write the chapter number in Roman Numerals xxiii like on the book, LOL).  This passage narrates a very special moment towards the end of King David's life, when he was thirsty and longed for water from Bethlehem, the water he had probably drank as a young man on many occasions while tending his family's sheep. When I read the preceding verse, I could almost hear David, speaking like in a daydream: “Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!” (2 Samuel 23: 15) I imagined David not really saying it with the intention or the expectation of having someone actually picking up their weapons and breaking through enemy camp to get him his precious desire.  I pictured him just saying it aloud like in a delirious wish.  His 3 "mighty warriors" who heard him, however, took their master's words at face value and on they went...to do exactly that: break through the Philistine lines surrounding Bethlehem, to fulfill their dying King's wish.

Then, what does David do when the 3 mighty warriors present him with the water? He poured it out onto the Lord. (2 Samuel 23: 16b) And this is the moment that inspired Chambers to say: 

As soon as I realize that something is too wonderful for me, that I am not worthy to receive it, and that it is not meant for a human being at all, I must pour it out “to the Lord.” Then these very things that have come to me will be poured out as “rivers of living water” all around me (John 7:38). And until I pour these things out to God, they actually endanger those I love, as well as myself, because they will be turned into lust. Yes, we can be lustful in things that are not sordid and vile. Even love must be transformed by being poured out “to the Lord.”

If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you clutched it for yourself. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything “to the Lord,” other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you.

Intense, isn't it?

The same way King David, from whom Our Savior and Redeemer's terrestrial bloodline comes, did not find himself to be worthy of the water that was fetched for him through such profoundly sacrificial effort by his mighty warriors, that same way we have to find ourselves not worthy of receiving God's blessings either.  The same way King David denied himself the privilege of drinking from the gift of water, and instead poured it out to the Lord in realization that only the Almighty was worthy of such precious gift...we must too be in such tune to the Holy Spirit as to know that the best we have to offer needs to always go to Him.  In God's economy, the biggest blessings He gives us must be surrendered back to Him in order to taste the joy of His abundant life.

The Lord knows how difficult this is.  Think of your most precious blessings...then...think of surrendering them at the foot of the cross...and in doing so, feel the agony of a spear piercing your heart.

Am I willing to do that?

The thirst that could be quenched by a tiny but satisfying sip...goes on making us taste the desert instead.  

This is another reminder that the living water that He pours into our jars of clay are not for us to keep.  They are meant to be poured out through us sacrificially, onto others so it can eventually come back to Him in the form of praises and worship from those who got their vision of God expanded through us.

May the Lord of all love and compassion be merciful and ever patient with us as we learn how to empty our lives onto Him, following the example of Jesus who gave Himself as the ultimate and most precious drink offering.  In His Name I pray.  Amen!