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PROGRAM D-7182
Have you had your cup jostled lately? I’ve discovered that I learn a lot about myself when things go wrong and my cup gets bumped, because what’s inside comes spilling out, and sometimes it’s not that pleasant.
Often it’s true that our job and the people we work with are great places to get bumped and jostled. I well remember a job situation that caused my cup to spill over. It was dealing with a very difficult boss, who managed through humiliation and intimidation. At first I had great difficulty with this person, and when God challenged me to take a serious look at what came spilling out of my cup because of this difficult relationship, I wasn’t too pleased.
Selfishness was the first thing I saw come running over the sides. I realized that my thought patterns had been centered on such sentiments as “I can’t take this anymore,” or “This is not fair to me,” and “I’ve worked too hard to get where I am to have to put up with this kind of treatment.”
Unfair and unkind treatment will come our way from time to time, and that kind of treatment really reveals the self-centeredness that’s inside of us.
This unpleasant job environment caused another thing to come spilling out of my jostled cup: I had to admit a severe lack of patience. Patience is not one of my strong points, but it is one of the fruits of the Spirit that I should exhibit. So here again, I had to confess that a whole lot of impatience was spilling out of my cup.
In Psalm 103:8 we read that our God is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” When I began to compare my behavior with God’s behavior toward me, I had no choice but to repent of my own lack of tolerance, and ask God to give me his graciousness and kindness.
Another thing this stressful situation caused to spill out of my cup was malice. Isn’t that an awful word? Malice is the desire to see others suffer. And I saw that I had a heart full of malice toward the person causing me the difficulty. And along with malice, we usually have slander, because as soon as we express those malicious thoughts, we have become guilty of slander.
It wasn’t pleasant to see what came running over the sides of my cup in that situation. But it caused me to get serious about cleaning up my cup. And with prayer and the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, changes started to take place.
Watch yourself. If your cup is jostled, take note of what spills out.