Sloshing buckets

This weekend is our church retreat and we are doing a video series by James MacDonald called Lord, Change My Attitude. In one analogy James compares us to buckets. When you bump a bucket you often can see what it is full of because some of it spills over. The same way with us when we get "bumped" in life whatever we are truly full of will come spilling out. When something hard happens, what is our reaction? Do we react in anger or with grace, fear or with trust. That is when the world around us has the opportunity to see the real us. Do we really believe all that we say we do? Do we react in a way that is honoring to God? Or do react in anger? Whatever is truly inside us will come spilling out whether we want it to or not. The real us will shine through.

I really started to think about what spills out when I get bumped. And, honestly, it is not always what I would like it to be. Sometimes it is. Sometimes I succeed in letting God have enough control in my life and receiving His grace and letting it fill my life enough that I can thank Him even in the hard things and react in grace. Actually, I tend to deal best with the really hard things of life. I tend to rely on Him for those things and trust Him wholeheartedly and at times I do it well enough for others to see Him working in my life. It is where I allow Him control because I know I can't do it alone.

But what about with the everyday struggles and annoyances in life? Can I say the same thing about what spills out with those bumps? I don't think I can because unfortunately it is not always love and grace. Probably not even mostly. It is those little things in life that I struggle the most to react to the way that I should. In my heart I want to always flow with love and grace but in my humanness I do not always succeed. Because I don't always rely on God. I think I can do the little things myself. I tell God "don't worry, I've got this on my own. I don't need you for this." But in reality I do! I always need God because without Him I'm just a mess. I can't do anything right without Him because He is what's right. It is so easy for me to rely on Him for the big things, the hard circumstances in life because I know without a doubt that I can't do those on my own. But with the small things, the everyday, I sometimes forget that I need Him too. My flesh wants to think that I can do something right on my own even though I know in my heart that I can't. And the only thing that happens is that I fail. On a regular basis. And as a result people don't see Jesus in me nearly as much as I want them to. Because that is all that I want to spill out of my bucket when bumped. Nothing but Jesus and love and grace. I will have to keep working on that in all of life, but most especially in the smaller things. What about you? What do you want people to see when you are "bumped"?