I was raised in a church where we sang hymns every Sunday. There are very few hymns, even to this day, that I don’t know. I know almost every word of those old, dear hymns and even if I should hear one sung today, it always takes me back to our little church when I was a young girl. There’s just something about those old hymns that make my heart swell and my eyes brim with tears. There has been one particular hymn that I’ve just not been able to get out of my mind recently. It’s one that has been “repurposed” into a more modern version, but the words are still as dear as they were when I was a child. This hymn is actually a prayer put to song: “Fill My Cup, Lord.”
“Fill my cup, Lord. I lift it up, Lord! Come and quench this thirsting of my soul; Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more~Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole!”
In essence, the hymnist is simply saying, “I want more of You, Lord! I want more of Your presence, more of Your power, more of Your love, more of Your grace… Lord, I just want MORE OF YOU!”And I have felt this same request burning in my own heart recently. Since my knee replacement surgery eight weeks ago, I have had many sleepless nights. Whether my lack of sleep was due to the medication I was taking, the pain I was experiencing, or maybe a combination of both…I have laid awake many a night.
But during those sleepless nights, this hymn: “Fill My Cup, Lord” has played over and over in my mind. It has become a constant prayer I’ve found my heart praying I WANT MORE OF YOU LORD! And I don’t long for Him to just FILL me up, I want the presence of God to OVERFLOW from my life!
I want my “cup” (my life, my heart) to overflow! I long for His presence and His power to overflow to the people around me! I want to be so full of God that His presence is too much for me to contain, so that it overflows in every area of my life! That people are affected by the God they see in ME!Psalms 84 describes a beautiful promise of God’s overflow and outpouring of His presence in our lives:
“How enriched are they who find their strength in the Lord. Even when their path winds through the dark valley of tears, they dig deep to find a pleasant pool where others find only pain. He gives to them a brook of blessing filled from the rain of an outpouring. They grow stronger and stronger with every step forward.” (Ps. 84: 5-7 TPT)
His promise to us is that regardless of what we are walking through, if we will seek Him with all of our hearts, search for Him diligently, and look to Him for our strength…He will fill us (our cup) with an overflow, an outpouring of HIM! And in receiving that outpouring, we become stronger and stronger with each step we walk with God. WHAT A PROMISE!
There is a wonderful place of refreshing even in our darkest hour or deepest valley. An outpouring, an overflow of God’s amazing and powerful presence!My prayer every day (and sometimes throughout the night) is “God, I want more of You! May my cup overflow with more of Your presence. May the people around me feel the overflow of You in my life! Fill my cup Lord to OVERFLOWING!”
What about you? Has your cup run a bit dry lately? Have the worries of this life quenched the thirst you once had for God? Are you walking through a dark valley, wondering if you will ever come to that place of refreshing that the Psalmist promises to you?Cry out of Him to “fill your cup.” Ask for more of His presence to be evident in your life. Dig deep in your prayers, in your Bible reading, in your desire to know God more. God never turns away a heart that longs for more of His presence in their lives.
In fact, He delights in your request and it is His deepest desire to FILL you with more of HIM!What is your life overflowing with? What is pouring out over the people in your life? Doubt, fear, anger, unforgiveness? Or God’s peace, His presence, His love, and His grace? All of our lives overflow with something; it’s just our choice as to what that overflow will be.Perhaps you need to be reminded of that old hymn also. And even if you don’t know the hymn, I pray that its words speak to you like they’ve spoken to me as of late:
“Fill my cup, Lord. I lift it up, Lord!Come and quench this thirsting of my soul;Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more~Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole!”
