Word Count: 814

Contact Jerry Ousley

Poured Out

by Jerry Ousley  
5/01/2015 / Christian Living

Many years ago I worked a few months at a saw mill. There's no way I don't think, that I could do that kind of work now (let's see, I'm sixty, and I believe I was around twenty-seven then hmmm wow! That was thirty-two years ago). The lack of physical exercise, the abundance of food and plain old age has taken its toll. Of course, I'm nearly twice the man I was then (I'm referring to size I only weighed in at around a whopping hundred and thirty pounds when I was twenty-seven; I won't say what I weigh now). Anyway, the work was hard; a lot of lifting, pushing, tugging and pulling. In the summertime sweat rolled off my body freely and my clothes were always soaked by the end of the day. In fact, as the months wore on towards winter and the mornings were crisp, the sweat still poured. When lunchtime came we were definitely ready for some nourishment.

Late one morning the owner's wife had to go to town. He asked her to pick us up something from McDonalds for lunch. We all gave her our orders and the money to cover the cost and worked in anticipation of her return. I had ordered one of my favorites a Quarter Pounder with cheese and fries. My mouth watered (or maybe that was sweat, I'm not certain) as I worked knowing that any time she'd roll up to the mill and we could take a break and enjoy our food. Finally she arrived and we sat down in the mill with our delicious, trans-fat-soaked delicacies. I had just gotten the wrapper off of my Quarter Pounder when the worst possible scenario happened. My burger slipped out of my hand and landed right in a fresh pile of sawdust! I was heart-broken! But you know what they say about the three second rule don't you? Any germs in that sawdust would have to move faster than me! I grabbed up that sandwich, dusted away all the sawdust I could and I ate the thing! It was my lunch and if I didn't eat it I'd just have to wait until supper! No way! It was good, although I couldn't get rid of all the sawdust; I suppose I got some extra roughage that day. It had been poured out right on that sawdust pile!

Another part of paying the price is pouring our self out to God. I think of Hannah, the mother of Samuel in the book of 1 Samuel 1:15. She wanted a child so badly that she prayed in the temple to the point that the high priest, Eli, thought she was drunk. She spoke under her breath to God and the Bible tells us that she poured herself out in prayer. God honored her and gave her Samuel.

In 2 Samuel 23:16 we read where David was in a hot battle with the Philistines. They had taken Bethlehem and at that moment he remembered how refreshing the water from the well of Bethlehem tasted. He longed for a drink from that well and spoke it out loud. Some of his mighty men heard him, broke through the garrison of the Philistines risking their own lives and returned with some water from the well to satisfy their leader. David realized how they had jeopardized their lives to satisfy his desire and he could not drink the water, but instead poured it out to the Lord. Some might view that as an act of disrespect to those men, but in reality selfishly drinking it would have been like drinking their noble blood. So it became a sacrifice to God.

We too must learn to pour our self out to God. The term means that we so long for Him and we want His fellowship so badly that we empty our self of all our desire yielding all to the Lord.

The Bible speaks of our heart's desire and how that God wants to grant this to us. Here lately I've thought a lot about that. Over the years there have been many things I have desired that eventually God allowed me to have. But I've come to the conclusion that we should first empty our self of our wants and replace them with what Christ would want. Then the desire of our heart becomes that of Jesus Christ and we have poured our self out, emptied our vessels of flesh, and filled them with what Christ would have. When we desire what He wants He will grant us that, because we have really emptied out to Him and allowed Him to fill us with what is worth the most. Become an empty vessel. Pour yourself out to the Lord. Then allow Him to fill you with His own heart's desire. You'll be amazed at the cleansing of it.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! Click here and TRUST JESUS NOW

Read more articles by Jerry Ousley

Like reading Christian Articles? Check out some more options. Read articles in Main Site Articles, Most Read Articles or our highly acclaimed Challenge Articles. Read Great New Release Christian Books for FREE in our Free Reads for Reviews Program. Or enter a keyword for a topic in the search box to search our articles.

Enter comments below. Due to spam, all hyperlinks posted in the comments are now immediately disabled by our system.

Please type the following word below:

Not readable? Change text.

The opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.

Hire a Christian Writer, Christian Writer Wanted, Christian Writer Needed, Christian Content Needed, Find a Christian Editor, Hire a Christian Editor, Christian Editor, Find a Christian Writer