Pour it Out to the Lord!

"He would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord." 2 Sam. 23:16

If you have become bitter and sour, it is because when God gave you a blessing you hoarded it. Yet if you had poured it out to Him, you would have been the sweetest person on earth. If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything 'to the Lord,' other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you. Oswald Chambers

For those of you not familiar with the passage of Scripture quoted above, it regards an incident in David's life when he was in hiding from Saul and the Philistines had a garrison in Bethlehem. In a moment of longing, David said, "Oh that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which [is] by the gate!"

Three of his mighty men risked their lives because of their love for David to bring him water from the well. Yet David refused to drink it and poured it out to the Lord, saying, "Be it far from me, O LORD, that I should do this: [is not this] the blood of the men that went in jeopardy of their lives? therefore he would not drink it."

When I read this quote and this devotional by Oswald Chambers, I prayed about it because I wasn't sure how it would apply in my life. Somehow the quote touched me deeply. I felt that it applied to a particular area of blessing in my life, but I just could not quite understand how.

Then as I read my Scripture portion for the morning, I came across the incident between Jesus and Peter in which Peter rebuked Him for telling them that the Son of Man would "suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and [of] the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." Jesus "rebuked Peter, saying, 'Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.'"

Jesus then went on to say to His disciples and to the multitude: "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it."

I really felt that this was an answer to my prayer regarding the pouring out of the blessing in my life. I felt God was trying to tell me that it is about being whole-hearted and holding on to NOTHING. It is being willing to lay it all down and let it all go in faith.

Some years ago, I went through a very difficult situation, and I realize now that I was so distraught because I was trying to save the 'life' I thought was mine. The situation itself developed because I had tried to fit my 'life' into the mold that someone else had set for me and because of my overriding desire to be accepted. In the end, I had to let go of a marvelous blessing God had given me.

My prayer is that the Lord will help me to remember this. I pray that I will remember to hold very loosely the blessings He gives, or rather that I will NOT hold them at all but will pour them out to Him. I want to be willing to pour it all out without reservation and without giving into the fear of man that haunts me, to pour my very life out to Him.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Love,
Ev


One thing have I desired and that will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to enquire in His tablernacle. Psalm 27:4