Poured Into/Poured Out

It's Thanksgiving morning 2012.  I find myself holed up in the middle of the Texas Hill Country watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  The dogs are asleep in an arm chair, my wife is working on a paper for grad school, and the smells of Thanksgiving cooking permeate the house.

All is well.

This morning a I encountered a phrase discussing worship that described the experience as "poured into poured out."  For some reason, that resonates with me today.  If you would have asked me 12 months ago if my life would have looked the way it does now, I would have laughed in your face.  This year there have been trials, heartaches, pain, regret, and sadness.  I'm probably making it sound worse than it really was, but from where I sit today I'm thankful that I am where I find myself at this moment in life.

I'm thankful because in all the trials, heartache, pain, regret, and sadness were counter-experiences of grace, mercy, forgiveness, redemption, and hope.

I have been poured into this year.  God has lavished us will all kinds of goodness that I don't know if I will fully ever be able to understand.  And out of that experience of being poured into, the only natural response is to pour it out in praise.

I have just been so overwhelmed this year about how good God was/is/will be.  There is a song that I has become sort of an anthem for me.  Matt Redman's "Never Once" has become one of my favorite new songs.  The chorus says:

Never once did we ever walk alone

Never once did you leave us on our own

You are faithful

God you are faithful

And my response to that is thankfulness.  I hope this Thanksgiving you will meditate on the great blessings of God in your life and that you will be poured into, so that you may be poured out.  

Happy Thanksgiving!

-PCox ><>