The Virtue of Overflow

There is an idea in scripture of being so full that you overflow; that you feel no compulsion to grab.

Whoever believes in me… ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’

John 7:38

Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.

Luke 6:38

Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

Matthew 12:34

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Psalm 23:5

See also 1 Thess 3:12, Phil 1:9, Matt 10:8, 2 Cor 9:11, Rom 15:13.

Think of the times you’ve held a cup under a particularly strong faucet and observed how insufficient the container is at accepting the moving liquid. Being an imperfect container (you are the container in this analogy, to be clear), you cannot fully appreciate every droplet of blessing the Lord showers upon you. Some of them spill out. Before long, your cup literally overflows.

When you try to forge your own path outside of the blessing of God—when you reach beyond the garden in which God has placed you—you find yourself scrambling around for a droplet here, a droplet there, desperate for the fullness that is only available through submission to Christ. This is because you’ve moved away from the fountain.

Humour me as I push this analogy into some more corners.

Sometimes, for example, the strength of the faucet’s stream strikes you so hard that it inflicts pain. And rather than embracing it, you seek to distance yourself from this blessing-in-disguise. You move out of the way of God’s refining stream, then wonder why, after the pain stops, you feel empty.

Living under the stream of God’s blessing doesn’t eliminate pain. It doesn’t cut out suffering. It simply fills you with a peace that passes understanding and joy that you cannot explain. You feel no need to grab. Rather, you learn to accept and receive whatever God gives you—whether that’s pain or pleasure. Sometimes the blessings don’t look like blessings; often, they sure do.