A Jostled Vessel

What­ever you are over­flow­ing with will spill out

This past week­end, I was talk­ing to my appren­tice about char­ac­ter and the great poten­tial it brings, if we were truly sur­ren­dered to God. Sur­ren­dered as if we were empty ves­sels. I used ves­sels in the sense that we have capac­ity to be poured into and then poured out. Imper­fect ves­sels as we are, with­out holes (in our faith and char­ac­ter), can con­tain bless­ings to God and oth­ers, in a way that we can daily be poured out as a drink offereing.

Lis­ten­ing this morn­ing to Ravi Zacharias—one of a few men who’s lives I fol­low, learn­ing from their faith, wis­dom and character—he told a story about a tumul­tuous time in his fam­ily grow­ing up in India. As a part of this story, relat­ing his moth­ers char­ac­ter,  he quoted this part of an Indian proverb:

“What­ever you are over­flow­ing with will spill out”

Easy to under­stand, right? The lit­tle boy in the car­pen­ters’ work­shop (pic­tured) appears to be mov­ing cau­tiously with a filled ves­sel (bowl) that serves some pur­pose (poured or some­how dis­charged to use) in the shop.  If his father or mas­ter  (pic­tured) were to back up as the boy went behind, he might bump into him, jostling his hands and poten­tially caus­ing the bowls con­tents to spill. The ques­tion is, if that bowl is us, what spills out?

For this rea­son I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every fam­ily in heaven and on earth is named, that accord­ing to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strength­ened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to com­pre­hend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that sur­passes knowl­edge, that you may be filled with all the full­ness of God. (Eph­esians 3:14–18; Eph­esians 3:19 ESV)

Now in a great house there are not only ves­sels of gold and sil­ver but also of wood and clay, some for hon­or­able use, some for dis­hon­or­able.  There­fore, if any­one cleanses him­self from what is dis­hon­or­able, he will be a ves­sel for hon­or­able use, set apart as holy, use­ful to the mas­ter of the house, ready for every good work.
(2 Tim­o­thy 2:20–21 ESV)