Reading Jesus: Filling the Cup from the Bottom.
“When I was alone then, no love in sight
And I did everything I could to get me through the night
Don’t know where it started or where it might end
I turn to a stranger, just like a friend
I was looking for love in all the wrong places
Looking for love in too many faces
Searching your eyes, looking for traces
Of what.. I’m dreaming of…” Waylon Jennings
I was talking to a guy on Saturday and he told me of the feelings of sadness he is experiencing in so many of his friends and the people he encounters. He said, “It’s like there is this underlying sense of sadness in people despite their outward appearances.”
There’s a great amount of heaviness in the hearts of so many people.
Where does this underlying, deep sadness come from?
It may not be expressed as sadness; perhaps it is expressed as frustration, disgust, anger, disappointment, or remorse. Sometimes it is best hidden by pretending that “everything is okay” or that “I’m not afraid”, or accomplishment, “success”, or whatever else I hide behind.
It seems that all too often we are looking for love in all the wrong places: work, success, relationships, positions of importance, the Red Carpet, etc. We search outwardly for what can only be found inwardly. And it seems like until love finds us inwardly, we’ll never be able to express it outwardly. Perhaps that is why we continue to attempt to numb the deep, inner, dull, aching pain with just about anything; there are nearly 160 million “addicts” of some sort in the United States.
Whether its religion, anorexia, alcohol, heroin, work, sex, cutting, cocaine, control, being nice, food, power, shopping– you name it– it’s the compulsion to engage in some specific activity in an effort to avoid pain and overcome shame. It’s doing whatever to “get through the night; turning to a stranger just like a friend… it’s looking for love in all the wrong places.”
And yet, we often turn and pretend that we don’t hurt; that we feel no pain; we deny the reality that our deepest search is love; we search the eyes; we search for traces of what we are really dreaming of… and we continue the cycle; continue the spiral; forgetting how it all started, not sure where it will all end.
We hide our faces.
We pretend.
We blame.
We “suck it up” and play tough.
We “think positive” as if we can drown the pain by not acknowledging it;
mask the wound through covering it with whatever we think will lfeel good.
We deny; we attempt to overcome; we strive for the top,
but it seems like Love finds us when we are the bottom.
As I Read Jesus, I find the very one who shows us the way to life; the very One who gives life. Those who were most drawn to him were the ones who were often found by him when they were at the bottom… those who thrist for real Love; God’s love.
Those who didn’t recognize him were the ones who the “outside of their cups were spotless”, but failed to see the inside. The cups that thristed for Love could never be filled from the outside, for it requires Lving Water to cleanse the inside; to fill the Cup of our lives from the bottom within. Scripture teaches that Jesus spoke to those who were hidden behind religion as “righteous”; he claimed that he did not come to “call” the righteous, but “sinners”. As long as I am hidden behind the denial of all that I strive to be in an effort control my reality; to numb my pain; as long as I “play righteous” it’s difficult to truly see God. It’s at the bottom of my cup, in the dark that the Light of the Living Water can fill the darkness to reveal the Love of God.
As I Read Jesus, I find the one who possessed it all, and emptied himself… and started at the bottom… As I Read Jesus, I discover that I don’t need to fear the bottom; be ashamed of the bottom… for God’s very self comes to the bottom; God can’t fill my cup from the top; God needs me to show him the bottom of my cup; the inside that is stained by pain; stained by missing the mark.
It is there I have experienced in my own personal journey that my cup is prepared to be cleansed; to be filled; to over-flow with the Living Water.
The bottom, I have discovered is the right place to be found by the very Love that I have been searching for.
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