"I am so tired of not being fed at the church I attend. I think I'm going to start looking elsewhere." Have you ever said this to yourself or to someone else? Maybe you've even left your church to go somewhere else because your current church wasn't "feeding" you enough. I've been there. Sunday after Sunday, mid-week service after mid-week service, I would go to church, sing, listen to the preacher and leave. I would feel like I wasn't getting anything out of it. I wasn't being "fed" the way I thought I should have been. I was going because that's what your "supposed" to do. "The preacher's message wasn't ringing any bells for me. Why??"
I recently read a blog and some of the comments were about how this person didn't feel like they were being fed like they should be at their church. Since then, it's just been on my heart about how many of us feel this way. And the more I pondered on it, the more the Lord kept saying.... It's not that they are not being fed but it's time they start pouring out what they have been fed. I began visualizing and by (I) I mean the Holy Spirit kept showing me through a coke. That's right folks, He knows just how to keep my attention. You know how when you pour a drink or something and that drink begins to overflow, you rush to put something under it to catch it in so it isn't wasted? (maybe not so much a coke but something else) Well, if you don't get something else it's going to be just that. Wasted.
God began to show me that is how we as believers often are. Saying we aren't being fed but in reality, maybe it's time we start to do the feeding. God is filling us up so that we can pour into others what he's fed us. But if we are just sitting around, all of that that God has filled us with is being wasted. Also, eventually, you have to start feeding yourself some. Your pastor, your youth leader, whoever it is, can't be the one always "feeding" you. There eventually comes a time when we can feed ourselves and let the church be our refreshers and are refills.
You may think that you can't pour out because you're not on the worship team or you're not the preacher but there are so many other ways to pour into peoples lives. Random acts of kindness, working in your church nursery, be a greeter, an usher, pick up trash, get involved in your community, write someone an unexpected note to encourage them. Pouring into someone's life doesn't mean standing at the pulpit or shouting in their face about getting saved, pouring into their lives can just simply mean loving them when the world is crumbling around them.
