What’s in your cup?
A friend of mine shared on Facebook an analogy her mom shared with her. That will be the foundation for today’s blog. Here’s what she wrote her mom shared with her:
You walk around with your cup of coffee... and suddenly someone passes... pushes you and makes your coffee spill everywhere. Why did your coffee spill? - Because someone pushed me Wrong answer: You spilled the coffee because that's what you had in the cup. If it had been tea... you would have spilled tea.
This analogy paints perfectly the concept of you are what you eat. What is inside of us will be what eventually comes out of us. Life shakes us up. That’s not an if or maybe. It’s a when. When we are bumped, we eventually spill and what spills reveals what is really in our hearts. Many times what’s spilled are areas that we have kept secret. They are parts of our lives that we’ve cleverly masked and hidden from the rest of the world.
You stub your toe. What spills? You lose your keys. What spills? Someone break checks you on the freeway. What spills? The waitress messes up your order. What spills? You receive an unpleasant report from the doctor. What spills? You lose your job. What spills? You lose a loved one. What spills? Truth is revealed when trials present themselves. Don’t get me wrong. We are not perfect human beings. We won’t always respond with virtue. We will slip. We will say things at the moment that is not the better side of who we are. How we consistently respond to life spills, however, reveal what’s in our hearts but more so what we’ve been filling our hearts with.
We have two choices to make in utilizing bumps in the road. We can either let the trail refine us or give it the power to break us. In refining, our character is built through dependence not on self, rather from our source. In breaking, we react to spills removing God and sometimes even blaspheming God. The reality is, each trial we face, whether big or small, reveals what’s in our hearts.
So my question to you is this, what’s in your cup? What are the things you’ve been filling your heart that will eventually spill? Are you going to spill bitterness, profanity, anger, and wrath? Or in pain, hurt, suffering and loss are you going to remember to fall on your knees to your source? A good indicator of how we will respond to life’s hiccups is being mindful of what we are filling our hearts. Our speech especially reveals what’s in our hearts in the overwhelming.
Again I ask. What’s in your cup? The shows you watch are what’s in your cup. How you utilize your time is what’s in your cup. What you read is what’s in your cup. The unforgiveness and unresolved issues are what’s in your cup. The insecurities you’ve allowed to rule you are what’s in your cup. Be honest with yourself, what’s in your cup. If you feed yourself what’s good, that’s what will come out. If you feed yourself rotten food, well you and I both know you can poison your insides. The same happens when we fill our cups with the rotten things in life. Our speak is poisoned. Our character is poisoned. And bottom line, our hearts are poisoned.
Matthew 12:34 says it perfectly,
Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Today I want to challenge you to reevaluate what’s in your heart. If you’re consuming rotten things, it’s very likely you’ve been walking around with a rotten mouth and rotten character. Ouch! If you’ve been filling your cup with good, then you’re on the right path. Truth be told, no one is perfect, but we can strive towards Christ perfecting us. In Christ’s perfecting, there’s a refining of our hearts and character; submitting our hearts to do the will of God and walking as Jesus did, not as we want.
I will leave you with this question one last time. What is in your cup? What will eventually spill when someone or something bumps you?