Spiritual Sponges

Read the May 16 “My Utmost for His Highest,” and see if it doesn’t convict you:
http://www.myutmost.org/05/0516.html

Excerpt:
“What does it matter if external circumstances are hard? Why should they not be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we banish God's riches from our own lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne. It opens our mouths to spit out murmurings and our lives become craving spiritual sponges, there is nothing lovely or generous about them.”

This whole thing gets to me, but the imagery of being a craving spiritual sponge really hits me. It is good to become a spiritual sponge…at first. Better to be a sponge than a slab of stone that will not retain any word from God, has no capacity to, and doesn’t want to. The first step is probably to become that craving spiritual sponge. I’ve seen it in new believers, including myself, and it’s beautiful—we realize how dry we are and want to absorb so much!

But we cannot stay there, can we? O.C. says this is the opposite of “lovely or generous,” and I believe he is speaking of the pouring out of the Spirit that was given to us on others. First we are filled, then we become instruments to fill others. God does the filling, but we are instruments in His hands—simply because it pleases Him to have such a oneness by working together with a “like mind” in this way.

"If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose." - Philippians 2:1-2

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." - Jesus in John 17:20-26

He doesn’t need us, but His chosen way is to use us because He loves us and it builds intimacy with Him. Perhaps we are most like Him when we in turn share with others what has been shared with us—knowing Christ. What greater gift could God offer, but to beckon us to share even in the slightest of ways something that is like Him—perfect God?! No wonder a God who loves perfectly and “knows how to give good gifts” chooses for us to share with Him in sharing with others (Matt 7:11, Luke 11:13).

Perhaps we are still sponges. Sponges that are so saturated with God that we begin to drip and overflow—as we continue to be filled, we continue to overflow into others so that they might be filled (Luke 6:45, Romans 15:13, 2 Cor 4:15, 9:12, Col 2:7, 1 Thess 3:12, and more). If we are a “craving spiritual sponge,” then we only take—we would not be filled to capacity and cannot flow outwardly. I don’t have any special prescription on how to begin to overflow, other than to know that the Bible speaks volumes about it—it is everywhere—recognition of Jesus as Savior, receiving of grace and the Holy Spirit, and complete surrender to God. We never stop being sponges, but we must look both to receive and to immediately give in spiritual things.