Like Watering Cans

{Throwback Thursday is a thing Jon Acuff does on the StuffChristiansLike blog, and I thought I’d give it a try here, with a look back at this pentecost focused reflection from last year}
I’ve been thinking a bit about Pentecost of late, as it is that time in the church calendar, and I’m giving a talk about Pentecost in America this Sunday. And I wanted to share one of the ideas God gave me this afternoon as I was out walking. You may want to have a read of the Pentecost story in Acts 2 to brush up on the context, but the super-summary version is the disciples are gathered in a room, Holy Spirit turns up, it all goes crazy with what seems like wind and fire, crowds turn up, the disciples go out and speak to them, they hear it in their own language, Peter preaches, 3000 are saved.
God doesn’t fill us up so that we get a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside ourselves. He fills us up so we can pour out in service to others. I believe it works something a bit like a watering can – we need to come to the tap to get filled up – filled with the Holy Spirit, then we can pour out God’s love on to people so that like seeds they can grow and blossom into followers of Christ. And then we need to make sure we keep ourselves refilled by spending regular time at the tap – time in the Word, time in prayer, time in passionate, pumping, rocking, loud worshipful praise to God.
But once we are filled we need to go out and pour it out onto the seeds. Because if you leave your watering c

an at the tap all day it will just overflow and your plants will die. Likewise with us, we need to follow the disciples example and move out from the comfort of the church service, the comfort of the concert with the great Christian band where electrifying praise is ringing in your ears and it is all good and the lead singer is crowd-surfing for Jesus. Because as cool as that is, life is about more than just getting filled up. Tim Hughes has a great song God of Justice and in the refrain at the end of it he sings “Fill us up, and send us out, Fill us up and send us out Lord” The chorus goes like this :
“We must go live to feed the hungry
Stand beside the broken
We must go
Stepping forward keep us from just singing
Move us into action
We must go”
What has God filled you to go out and do? What seeds have you been filled to water? Be moved into action, and pour out the love you have received today!