Overflow | Lifesigns Magazine

You wake up at 5:00 am and jump out of the bed. Well… maybe not jump out of bed. It is more like you roll out of bed, flop out of bed, or fall out of bed. Either way, it’s time to get up and your day begins. You have a list of a thousand things to get done and only have time for just a few. You muster up the strength to walk to the bedroom door for what awaits you. Instead of just slowly creaking the door, open you grab the doorknob and pull the door open with a powerful jerk. You look down and there are three smiling faces and one wet canine nose staring up at you, all excited that you are up and ready for the day with them. You breathe hard and a small sigh squeezes out as you step over the threshold into the hallway for another day with three small children and one overly affectionate dog.

You wake up at 5:00 am and jump out of the bed. You quickly run to the bathroom where you take care of your bladder, which should have been taken care of around 2:00 am but you were sleeping so well that you just couldn’t pull yourself out the comfort of your bed. Now you are in emergency mode. You look at the clock to see how much time you have left to get ready for the day. You have a thousand things to do, just like yesterday, and the day before that day, and so on and so on. You know you only have time for a few list items but you are going to try and get as much done as you can. You shower, shave, and put on your clothes. The smell of bacon escapes the kitchen and makes its way down the hallway to your bedroom where your nose awaits the beautiful smell of the greatest of all meats. You reason in your head that bacon is the only meat that you wrap other foods with to make them taste better. You shake yourself back to reality and remember all the things you must do. You don’t have time for breakfast, so you are going to eat a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on the way to work. You are dressed and ready to go. You bolt out the bedroom and down the hall, taking a left into the kitchen where your wife awaits you with the sandwich in hand, a cup of coffee, and lips puckered for a good-bye kiss. You grab the sandwich, coffee, and skim your wife’s lips with yours as you bolt past her and out the door to another day of life. You will repeat this day over and over for the next 40 to 50 years.

“DAAANNNGGG! That’s not much of a life,” you say.

Well, I might tend to agree with you. However, that is the reality for billions of people around the world. I recently read an article about stress in America done by the American Psychological Association (The graphic is included on page 34). The study found that 62% of women ages 18-34 said that most days they are completely overwhelmed by stress. 51% of men ages 18-34 said the same thing. However, I noticed in the study that the older you get the less stressed you become. By 65+ years old the stress levels are down to 9% for women and 8% for men. Hmmm??? Why is that?

I believe that—for the most part—when you are younger, you’re building your life. You are marrying, starting a career, building a family, starting a business. You are full of vision, full of energy. You have a lot on your plate. I also believe for the most part that most younger people have an optimistic view of life. However, they have not yet experienced all the actual realities of life with all its ups and downs.

Here is the question I ask: “Can we live a life that is stress free and full of the life and fire of God?” With a resounding affirmation, I say YES!

“How can you say that with such confidence?” You might ask.

I can say yes from two perspectives, those being my own life and the life that Jesus lived. Jesus’ life was not problem free by any stretch of the imagination, but it was stress free. Why? Because His hope, trust, and strength came from the relationship He had with His Father, not from His circumstances. There were times in His life when the fire was burning low, but He always called out to His Father. Jesus had a discipline of getting away from the disciples and the crowds to a quiet place to spend quality time with His Father. I personally don’t believe Jesus ever got to the point where He was depleted of strength and power because of His constant connection with His Father. The garden of Gethsemane is a great example of the problems of life overwhelming Him, yet He remained connected. He knew He was facing inhumane brutality and a horrific and barbaric death, so He called out to the Father who gave Him the power, strength, and you might say “the fire” to do what He was called to do. Jesus didn’t just endure the garden, the beatings, the cross, and burial. He overcame them all. Yes, to the disciples it looked as if Jesus’ fire was out. But as always, the Father had another plan altogether. Three days later, Jesus’ fire was “lit” and it was on. And, as you know, the last two-thousand years have been awesome.

In my own life I have learned to live and minister from the overflow and not the reservoir. If I live and minister from the reservoir, I’ll eventually deplete it, dry up, and burn out. However, if I minister from the overflow, I will never burn out or be depleted. The Holy Spirit is my source, and He has an endless supply of power, strength, joy, hope, life, and all His gifts. However, I am a limited being. I am limited by time and space. We all are, so we must minister from the overflow of what the Holy Spirit is filling us up with. We have a constant connection. I should say “we should have a constant connection,” but we don’t. That is why we must have this discipline of getting away from the hustle and bustle of life on a regular basis. In case you didn’t know, God built that into our life by giving us a Sabbath. He knew we were limited, and He is not. We need to rest so that we can burn, so that we can be all He created us to be. I have found that resting gives me energy physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Now, some of you might be thinking that you need to rest more so that you can build up your strength to do all God wants you to do. Yes and no. Yes, you need rest, but the objective isn’t about the resting. It is about the fueling of the fire to be all He has called you to be. After all these years, the passion and fire of my relationship with Jesus is burning stronger than it has ever burned. The flame at times has dwindled but never to the point of burning out. The rest and refueling was a necessity and are still a necessity. I want to burn red hot and fiercely until the day He calls out my name to come home. I want to be too hot to handle in this life. I want to wake up every day while Satan and all of hell try their best to keep me asleep because I am a threat to their kingdom of darkness. We will never be that unless our source of fuel is Him and only Him.