I read this analogy on a Facebook post a few days ago. It goes something like this: Imagine that you have a cup of coffee, then someone bumps into you and the coffee spills out. You didn't spill coffee just because someone bumped you-- you spilled it because it is what was in your cup. If you'd had tea, that's what would have spilled.
The point is, there will inevitably be unexpected events that come along in our lives and jar us. When that happens, whatever our hearts are full of is what will "spill" out of us. When things are going well, it can be easy to make ourselves look like we are full of love, peace, grace, or joy. But when the hard times come, the mask comes off, and what is genuinely inside of us is revealed. Or as Luke 6:45 says, "What you say flows from what is in your heart."
I have personally witnessed people who, in the depths of their own pain and grief, still manage to walk with and shepherd others through suffering. It isn't fake-- that is what is truly inside their hearts flowing out of them. It is beautiful.
Whatever your cup is full of, you pour it from somewhere. There is a source. Left unchecked, life all too often pours me a big cup of negativity, exhaustion, irritation, impatience... I could go on. But I have found that when the source of what fills my cup is God-- faith, prayer, scripture-- I find myself becoming full of the things that reflect him. Qualities like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).
At the end of the Facebook post, it says, "When life gets tough, what spills over? You choose!" In other words, every day you can choose the sources you rely upon to fill your cup. That is what will "spill" when life jars you. What is your source?
