Faucet

I was recently talking with someone who is involved in helping multiple people who are in some rough spots. My friend was weary and carrying a heavy load as he felt the weight of the situations he was dealing with. I, too, recently have felt that way in many of the very hard situations in people's lives we've been a part of recently, and continue to be a part of.

As I was talking to him I was encouraging him with advice I was once given. That advice was to remember that the problems in others' lives are really God's problems and not mine. My friend who I had gone to was an associate pastor at another church and I was working with a couple in a very rough marriage. The advice he gave me was to say, "God, You have a problem in this marriage. What would you like me to do?" That advice really helped set me free to remember that it was really God's problem and He wanted their success even more than I, and my job was to be His ready and surrendered vessel available for Him to use and speak through.

As I shared that with my friend I believe God gave me an image to share with him as well, and I thought it might bless others so I decided to write it out. Basically it was of a faucet. Not that it matters, but it was a shiny, nice silver kitchen faucet. (Maybe this image resonated so well with me because our well pump went out last week and we spent time facing the situation of turning on faucets and having no water, and the uncertainty of how that water would come and how long we and our plants, etc., could go without it.) Anyway I felt led to suggest to my friend that he picture himself as a faucet. A faucet is not the water source, it is simply the means of delivering the water. Picture God as the water source, and the people he was involved with as the cup. The job of the faucet is to deliver the water to the cup. The water flows through the faucet and into the cup, and it is the water that revitalizes and refreshes and sustains life. The faucet simply is there, ready for the water to flow through it.

At any rate, that worked for me, and it worked for my friend, so I thought I'd share it with you. Blessings to you all, thanks for reading a being a part of my life. May God overwhelm you this week with a deep awareness of His love for you, presence with you, and of His star-breathing power and glory!