Our resources or His?

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."
-Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1

I love this verse of Scripture and the passage it comes from. It reminds me of the illustration (well-worn, but still excellent) of a pitcher of water. If you simply pour out the water that is in the pitcher, the pitcher is soon empty and the water ceases to flow. But if the pitcher is located under a faucet with an endless supply of water, the pitcher remains full while still flowing into whatever is around and under it.

I can't put a number on the times in my life that I've tried to do something-- a day of work, a difficult task, a relationship-- on my own resources. Maybe I last a few hours, maybe even a few days if I'm particularly well-rested at the start. But inevitably, and generally sooner than I anticipate, I find my resources have been tapped out. I'm emotionally, mentally, and physically drained, and I have nothing worthwhile left to give.

But God is the faucet to our small pitcher. If we locate ourselves near Him, under Him, in the refreshing flow of His comfort and strength, we ourselves are filled even as we pour out into others. Rather than draining our finite resources, we tap into His infinite resources and reap blessing even while we bless those around us. What a better way to live!

Service as a gift

"The more we do in the Lord's service, the greater are our obligations to Him, for the will, for the ability, and opportunity."
-Matthew Henry in his commentary on Leviticus 1

This, like so much of faith, is so backwards from the way we think. We feel that the Lord should be indebted to us for our service, that we are somehow giving Him something out of the goodness of our own hearts. But everything we have was given to us by His hands in the first place, even the very opportunities we have to minister! We really cannot believe that our cars and houses and food come out of His generosity (and indeed sometimes we don't even give Him credit for these) but then claim that our service to Him flows from our own resources. We have no resources. All is from Him, and He makes it ours to give or to keep, but let us not fool ourselves into thinking that we are especially good or generous. Only One is exceptional in His goodness and generosity, and every good and perfect gift-- including ministry-- comes from Him.