A TIME TO BE FILLED

Pentecost Sunday 2021
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Some years ago, I was asked to minister a poem for the last service of our annual Pentecostal Weekend Celebration. This was during a particularly dry season for me spiritually. I was filled with resentment, confusion and hurt over some serious church matters and I really didn’t know how to handle it. The pain and anger ran so deep that I did what some wounded sheep do. I retreated. Not from the church, but from God. My spirit went on autopilot and began going through the motions of worship and service unto the Lord and nobody knew the difference. Nobody but me. Nobody but God. The fact that leadership and peers seemingly couldn’t tell the difference only worsened my attitude and deepened the wedge between me and my deliverance.

Recently I read up on what sheep do when they face fear, hurt and danger. “¹When they are faced with danger, their natural instinct is to flee not fight. Their strategy is to use avoidance and rapid flight to avoid being eaten. A sheep that is by itself is vulnerable to attack.”
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I was ripe for the devil’s pickings and didn’t even know it. I was blaming God for the wrongdoing of others and running from the very one who could console, comfort, heal me and show me what to do. But even in my rebellion, God reached out to me through the request to minister a poem that weekend. My heart remained hardened up to the very day of the service. I had made up my mind to just minister one of my old pieces, but the Holy Ghost just wouldn’t let me be. After morning service, I left to go get something to eat but never made it out of the parking space. I sat in my car weeping and pouring out my heart to God in repentance and despair. And as I did, He refilled me once again. As I came out of the spirit, I asked God which old poem should I minister and He answered “Tell them the truth.” I picked up my pen and this is what I wrote:
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                          THE OVERFLOW

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​I’m as dry as the dirt in the desert,
I’m dying of thirst from within,
For too long I’ve quenched the anointing,
It’s not even really about sin. 
            I’m in need of an overflow.
 
I’m too tired of going through the motions,
And of playing my part so well,
That I’ve almost fooled myself,
And others can’t seem to tell,
            I’m in need of an overflow.
 
Too stubborn to admit any weakness,
Too proud to let anyone know,
Too ashamed to admit after all this time,
I’m in need of an overflow.

Has it been so long that I’ve forgotten,
Any time I am in need,
You are willing and able and ready,
My emptiness to receive?
 
Have my eyes become so blinded,
And my memory so clouded too,
That I forgot that You said in Your word,
“I’ll be a well of water inside of you” ?
 
“How much longer will it be ‘til you seek Me,
Surrender your will and control,
Lay down your weights, lay down your sins,
And receive My overflow?"

Lord, even now I can hear You speaking,
Even now I feel You tugging my soul,
And I know that Your loving chastisement,
Will be followed by a great overflow.
 
(And it was.)

Poetricia Publishing © 2019