12.05.07
“A LEAKY BUCKET!”
II Corinthians 4:5-7
“For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”
Somewhere in my distant past I heard an illustration that has stuck with me. It seems that an elderly man lived in a small cabin near a beautiful pristine lake. There was no water in his small cabin, so it was a daily task for him to take two buckets and walk to the edge of the lake and fill them.
Now it so happened that a young man was spending time with the old man and volunteered to take on the task of getting the water. When he arrived back at the cabin on his first trip, he noticed that one of the buckets was almost empty. He mentioned it to his host, but the old man simply smiled and said, “It is no problem.”
Day after day this pattern repeated itself. After a few days the young man found a new bucket to replace the one that leaked. He mentioned nothing to the old man, but was quite proud of himself. After a week the old man said that he noticed that he was not carrying the leaky bucket. The young man proudly boasted that he had found a new one.
He had taken care to not let the old man know what he had done. He asked him how he knew about the new bucket. The old man said that he knew what he was doing because the flowers were dying. The young man was at a loss to know what his new bucket had to do with the flowers dying.
It was then that the old man revealed that he intentionally used the old leaky bucket because as he carried it along the path back to the cabin, water leaked out and watered the flowers that grew along the path. The old bucket was a tool used to bring life along the path.
Sometimes we have the idea that God uses only wonderful new buckets to do His work. LISTEN! It is not the bucket (us) that matters. It is the precious Lord which is in us that counts. Some of the ugliest and most unsightly buckets allow the beauty of Jesus to shine through.
That reminds me of an inspirational hymn:
“Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me;
All His wonderful passion and purity.
Oh, Thou Spirit divine; All my nature refine.
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.”
Blessings dear hearts. Walk with God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing.
— Pastor Cecil