I'm A Little Teapot

My Mom has always had a quote that she's used that I can't remember exactly how it goes, but if you explain it it's something like this; "We're all like glasses that are full to the brim. When we get bumped, whatever we're full of is what splashes out on the people around us."

It's so very true. Living with siblings tests you to an extreme, because you get bumped tens or hundreds of times in any given day. If you splash out something hot and bitter then they bump again in reaction to that (everybody gives a nice little jerk when they're burnt, don't they?) and you splash out more and pretty soon you're both scalded if one or the other of you doesn't decide to splash out something cool and sweet to soothe the burns from the last couple splashes.

Here's the kicker, though: if you don't have anything cool and sweet in you then you won't be able to stop the cycle. You have to make sure that your heart and mind are full of "whatsoever things are lovely," and being "full" of loveliness is NOT accomplished by only making sure that 5, or even 10% of what you read, watch and listen to is lovely and pure. That just means that you'll splash out sweetness 5 or 10% of the time.

Keeping your heart and mind full of Christ and His goodness feels like work at the start, but it becomes easier and easier as you let Him shape you more and more like Himself.

Think of it this way. The movies, books and music you listen to are like artificial sweetners. They taste good at the moment, but eventually they wreck your health and make everything that is truly sweet taste repulsive. But if you've ever tried eating a grape or a strawberry then taking a drink of diet soda, you know that it's actually the "diet" that's nasty. In the same way, if you spend a morning reading your Bible and listening to worshipful music, and then read a biography of someone who served the Lord with all their hearts, and a devotional for the day, then when you pick up the book full of wicked relationships and sinfulness you'll find that it's bitter and nasty.

If you take care to choose to fill yourself with things that Christ considers lovely, then you will only ever have His loveliness to splash out onto those around you.