What are we full of?

But you, O Lord,
are a God of compassion and mercy,
slow to get angry
and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.
Psalm 86:15

In a prayer meeting recently, a colleague read the above verse as part of a reflection. As he read the last few words of the verse, a picture formed in my mind of a glass filled with liquid. It was full to the brim, and as it was knocked, some of the liquid inside spilled out. I imagined this to be God’s ‘unfailing love and faithfulness’ spilling over the sides of the glass.

God is completely full of love, grace, compassion, mercy, goodness, and so many other things, that when He is ‘knocked’, it’s impossible for anything other than love, grace, compassion, mercy and goodness to spill over. Just like when a glass that is full to the brim is knocked, it’s impossible for the liquid not to spill over.

Then my thoughts turned to myself. If I were to think of myself as a glass of liquid, how full am I of these godly qualities – love, compassion, grace, mercy, peace, joy – which, as His child, I am called to be full of. When I am knocked, what spills out of me? I wish I could say it’s always love and grace, but sadly so often it’s irritation or anger, or I jump to defend myself, or play ‘victim’.

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I’m so grateful for God’s love and compassion when I ‘knock’ him and when I get it wrong, as I so frequently do. I am so thankful that what spills out of Him is love, grace and forgiveness. And my prayer is that God will continue to fill me with His goodness, so that when I am unexpectedly knocked by life, I will respond in a similar way.