Overflow

There is one world that best describes the past week...WET.

Lesotho is known for having many days of sunshine, but this year that is not the case. Every step you take on our campus, you step in a puddle. The inside of the children and volunteer houses look like clothing stores, because we can not use the outside lines to dry our laundry. There is a lot of water, but there is even more JOY.

Yesterday I was walking around the campus and I will be honest, I didn't have the best attitude. I was carrying children back and forth from their houses to the clinic for check ups. I was drenched. I used my rain coat to cover the children, but had no covering for myself. I was tired. Tired of being wet. Tried of being tired. I was tried. As I watched people walking around the campus I saw a lot more tired people. A week ago, when our campus was flooded, the Geurink children along with a family who is volunteering here and myself were running through the puddles, splashing and laughing. That day I carried some of the staff on my back from the baby houses to the front of the campus, because they told me they were scared of the water. It was a fun, very wet afternoon. Now fast forward a week later and we are no longer running in joy and laughing, but complaining and tired (at least I was).

As I sat on the front porch yesterday and felt the rain, I was reminded about God's overflowing presence. Psalm 23:5 says, "You prepare a table before in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows." God has laid out everything we need. He not only supplies what we need, but He sends His Spirit to overflow in our lives with power and joy. Our cups should never be half empty, or half full, because God supplies our needs and overflows through us by the power of His Spirit.

In your life, do you feel God's presence as a little trickle, or as a raging stream, rushing through every ounce of you with mighty power? A lot of times we feel as though God has left us. His power and presence are not felt. I know I have had those day.

Take your hands and hold them open under a faucet. It is easy to feel the water rushing in your hands, because there is more of them to receive it. Now hold your hands closed in a fist. It is hard to receive the water because your hands are closed.

It is the same with God. Are your hands open up to the Spirit or are they closed? Are you ready to receive His power, so that you can be His witness? Are you ready to have your life OVERFLOW with God's presence?

One of my favorite verses says, "May the God of hope fill you with al joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:13). I pray for all of you reading this that you will open your hands and allow God's hope to flow out of you like the rushing water at BG. Accept His grace and mercy in times when you get scared and your hands close, but they open them up and trust that God is making a way for you in.