Do You Have What It Takes?

completed on 3/12/24

I was mulling something over when this question came to mind: When you are dying of thirst, are you grateful for the cup or the water?

Humans are funny creatures. We are prone to focus on and chase after things that aren’t always best for us, yet in small doses they can seem innocuous. This often leads to “falling down a rabbit hole” that makes Alice In Wonderland seem like a children’s story. Oh wait, it is, but you get my drift. Moving on. We can get so caught up on words or ideas that we don’t see “the bigger picture”; we don’t see the truth.

It’s human nature to act on what we see in the moment. This holds true with clothing, what club or clique someone is in, personal hygiene and even the color of one’s skin. We forget to see with our minds instead.

It’s also human nature to want to observe and figure things out, solve puzzles and problems. Take infants and toddlers. They watch and listen for clues to solve this puzzle we call life. Animals are the same way. The gears are always turning BUT we can also learn to be mentally lazy. It is often  taught to us inadvertently by those that love us the most (but that is another discussion for another day).

Let me clarify right here that being mentally lazy DOES NOT MEAN STUPID OR UNEDUCATED! (just because you have cruise control on doesn’t mean you don’t still have to drive the car; this include those that seem to almost drive for you). The movie The Matrix is a classic example.

I believed everything I was told, focused on religion and not relationship. Waited for the Sunday school leader to “teach” me. I waited for the preacher to tell me what the Bible said and what it meant. My Scripture reading was only slightly more than nonexistent and read with the mind of a child riddled with shame. It was just so much easier to let someone else “think” for me. I didn’t question and didn’t read with a questioning mind. I assumed it was my lack of understanding that was the issue. I sat there like a baby bird with mouth wide open, starving, waiting to be fed.

I spent decades living in a state of mental, emotional and spiritual laziness and it landed me into more than one 12 Step program (ok, TECHNICALLY it landed me in therapy and my therapist made me go). It was in those rooms with those that had similar issues, that I began to learn just how much control of my life I had given to others and just how “lazy” I had become. I learned how to take responsibility for my own emotions and actions but I STRUGGLED with religion/spirituality. I had to start over but I had to become teachable. Thankfully God sent me a wise sponsor and couple of pastors that challenged me and taught me how to find answers for myself.

I was reminded about a story I read on Facebook. An old woman had to travel to a stream daily for water. She was poor and couldn’t afford a new vessel to carry her water in so she just had to live with it leaking water as she walked home. One day the cracked vessel told the old woman that it felt so ashamed that it leaked, leaving her with less water that if it were perfect. The old woman smiled and told the old pot, “I’ve known about your defect all along. Have you never noticed the flowers and berries only on your side of the road? Every day you watered those flowers and berries”. Instead of being upset she would only arrive home with one and a half pots of water she made use of the defect in the pot. And the pot felt like it was inefficient, a burden, useless thinking it only contributed to the lady’s burden. Had the other pot been defective as well, it would’ve felt “normal”.

So what does all of this have to do with a cup and water? I was a cup that didn’t hold much water. I was broken. I was worried that nobody wanted what was in the cup because the cup wasn’t good enough. I never thought I “useful”. I never realized it was that very defect that allowed me to nourish others.

God doesn’t care if you are a crystal goblet, a Solo cup or an ugly beat up tin can. WE are the ones that worry. Does everyone notice the cup? Does it look ok? Is it good enough? WHO CARES! The only requirement is that it holds water  He doesn’t care about the clothes you wear, how much money you do or don’t have. OUR WORLD IS DYING OF THIRST AND WE ARE WORRIED ABOUT THE CUP! What He does care about is you pouring out Living Water to a dying world.