My Cup Has Overflowed

We all pray for the blessings, the good stuff, the happy, the easy, the fun.  None of us sign up for the hard, the scary, the painful.  In fact, could we just skip the bad stuff all together?  Could we ask God to remove all the heartache, the death, the destruction, the illness, the loss? 

In Psalm 23, David says, “My cup overflows.” (v. 5) It is embedded in a psalm of praise that also acknowledges the hard things of life.  David highlights his faith in God even when things are not easy.  He acknowledges the Lord’s power to restore his soul, the times of walking through the valley of the shadow of death, evil, and enemies.  From this, we understand that life is full of good and bad.  But David’s use of the words, “My cup overflows,” tells us that he knows that he has good, in fact, more good than he deserves.  Because not only is his cup full, but it has overflowed. 

For all of us coffee drinkers out there, let’s imagine our favorite coffee cup.  There it sits in the cupboard waiting for us each morning.  And imagine that we get it out and look into it right before we pour our coffee and we see some grains of dirt, some specks of darkness in our cup.  We go to the sink and we start running pure, clear water into our cup.  If we continue running the water, soon it will rise to the top and start to overflow the sides, but during that process, what will happen to that old dirt?  It will rise to the top, jostled by the pure water it will also overflow the sides until the water contained in that cup is clean and pure, too.  All the impurities are washed away.

You know that’s what the hard things do for our lives.  They take all the anger, bitterness, vile behavior, hate, jealousy, contempt, corruptness, dishonesty, and on and on, from us IF we let the Lord work in us.  It is the essence of Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

God’s powerful love for us takes all the hard things of this world and uses them to make us more pure, more loving, more empathetic.  Or as David says in Psalm 23: restored, anointed, satisfied, comforted, guided, fearless, victorious.  And don’t we want all these things? 

We do.

Thank you, Father, for Your mighty work in our lives.  Let us remember the blessing of an overflowing cup comes from a life filled with walking closely with you through the good AND the bad.  And let us rejoice that even the bad, becomes good, an overflowing cup, when placed in Your hands.

Dig Deeper:

Read Psalm 23

Listen to Jabez sing “Drinking From My Saucer”

Listen to Michael Combs sing “Drinking From My Saucer”

Psalm 23

(A Psalm of David)

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

He restores my soul;

He guides me in paths of righteousness

For His name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil; 

for Thou art with me;

Thy rod and Thy staff,

they comfort me.

Thou dost prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

Thou hast anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow

me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the house 

of the Lord forever.