Keeping Your Love Cup Full
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Ps. 23:5, 6, NIV.
Down deep in your heart there's a cup. Not of fine china, silver, or gold, but a cup of feeling and emotion that when filled makes life worth living. I call it the love cup. It measures your level of contentment. In essence, it's your psychological well-being.
The love I am writing about is not a romantic love, but agape love—a principle, not necessarily devoid of emotion, but not dependent on it either. It is love given with no strings attached, just because the other person exists. When we experience it, endorphins—substances chemically similar to morphine—flow into the brain, producing a sense of security, peace, and calm. One feels good because one feels intrinsically valuable.
When your cup is running low, you feel unloved, rejected, worthless, and empty—you have nothing to give. A drained cup turns your world negative. Anger, criticism, sarcasm, guilt, and bitterness rush in to fill the void.
God can enter a life that's filled with hate and selfishness. He can change it. In a sense, that's the meaning of conversion. No one is beyond God's healing power of love. But even though God can do it, that doesn't mean we should leave the filling entirely to Him. The Lord gives us the opportunity to be His entering wedge. People starved for love may first need to experience a little love in action—from fellow human beings. It causes them to realize that their lives are empty. Then we can point them to the Source of complete love.
If you feel empty, ask God to fill you. He will speedily respond. And seek out others who can be cup-fillers, too. Then when your cup is filling, or full, reach out and begin filling the empty love cups of the unlovable. You may not feel loving toward them, but that doesn't matter. God asks no one to feel loving. He just says to be loving. It's the act of love that is important. Love is something you do. And as you love, both you and the one whose cup you are filling will begin to live life abundantly!
Loving Father, fill my cup with Your love so I can fill others. Amen.
Down deep in your heart there's a cup. Not of fine china, silver, or gold, but a cup of feeling and emotion that when filled makes life worth living. I call it the love cup. It measures your level of contentment. In essence, it's your psychological well-being.
The love I am writing about is not a romantic love, but agape love—a principle, not necessarily devoid of emotion, but not dependent on it either. It is love given with no strings attached, just because the other person exists. When we experience it, endorphins—substances chemically similar to morphine—flow into the brain, producing a sense of security, peace, and calm. One feels good because one feels intrinsically valuable.
When your cup is running low, you feel unloved, rejected, worthless, and empty—you have nothing to give. A drained cup turns your world negative. Anger, criticism, sarcasm, guilt, and bitterness rush in to fill the void.
God can enter a life that's filled with hate and selfishness. He can change it. In a sense, that's the meaning of conversion. No one is beyond God's healing power of love. But even though God can do it, that doesn't mean we should leave the filling entirely to Him. The Lord gives us the opportunity to be His entering wedge. People starved for love may first need to experience a little love in action—from fellow human beings. It causes them to realize that their lives are empty. Then we can point them to the Source of complete love.
If you feel empty, ask God to fill you. He will speedily respond. And seek out others who can be cup-fillers, too. Then when your cup is filling, or full, reach out and begin filling the empty love cups of the unlovable. You may not feel loving toward them, but that doesn't matter. God asks no one to feel loving. He just says to be loving. It's the act of love that is important. Love is something you do. And as you love, both you and the one whose cup you are filling will begin to live life abundantly!
Loving Father, fill my cup with Your love so I can fill others. Amen.
Used by permission of Health Ministries, North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists.
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