Out of the Overflow

     This is my prayer: that the words I speak, and the longings of my heart would be pleasing to the Lord, for He alone is my Rock and my Redeemer.

     In just over 11 hours I will be heading out on a life changing adventure, but it is meaningless without Christ as my focus. My prayer remains the same as it is for my every day life: That in the craziness of doing things for Christ, I will not forget my relationship with Him.

     When we allow Him to, Christ has a way of coming in and filling every little corner of our lives. However, He doesn't stop there. As believers and as lovers of Christ, we will never come to a place where we can say, "Ahh I've made it! I can stop praying, stop serving, stop loving, I'm good enough." Rather, we should always strive for more. We should always desire a deeper understanding and relationship with the Lord.

     One of the wonderful things I have realized about our faith is this: Christ said that our being content is a good thing. He also says however, that we are made with a constant longing and desire for relationship with Him. And that is also a good thing! It seems there is a problem though: how are we to constantly long for something, while remaining content and satisfied at the same time?  The beauty in it is this: although we are always hungry, Christ can always fill that hunger. However, when Christ fills our emptiness, we still desire more. Well, then He must just be failing at filling us, right? Nope. He does fill us, the very first time we invite Him to do so.

    This is perhaps one of those things that we will not fully understand until we get to heaven, because it doesn't quite make sense in our human understanding of it. Once we are filled, we remain filled. We cannot be emptied of Christ. We also cannot have too much of Him. As humans, we understand hunger and thirst in our terms. Christ doesn't work that way though, He is never done filling us. Once we allow Christ to fill us, He is then able to use us.

This is where we experience the overflow. 

     We are empty, Christ fulfills His promises to us. We desire more, Christ fills us. We long for a deeper relationship, Christ satisfies. The perfect combination of longing and contentment is found in a relationship with Christ. The overflow of that relationship is what attracts others to Christ.