What's Inside the Cup?

“There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” Mark 7:15

You always hear people talking about whether the cup is half full or half empty. How come no one ever wonders what’s inside the cup?

In a world full of influencers & content, I wish we would focus a little less on one’s influence, & a little more on one’s contents. What is INSIDE of us?

I often fall into the trap of blaming my recent behavior on what someone else said or did. As a result of someone else’s behavior, naturally I imploded into my feelings. If so-and-so had not done X, then I would not have done Y. Right?

As I’ve gotten older and wiser(?) I’ve stopped explaining my actions this way out loud—only because I realized how foolish it sounded. I took my irrational hypotheses and worked them out in private behind the closed doors of my mind. 

Unfortunately, as conviction sets in, I realize that although what someone said or did may indeed have ignited something negative within me, it did not create it. 

When the cup is emptied, what comes out of it is what was inside of it. I know that each situation is different. Everyone has a different history—different upbringing, different health, different experiences. I just want to highlight here that something inside of me desperately wants to justify my actions. But if I am honest with myself, I realize that no matter how nasty my response, THAT was inside of me all along. It is a hard truth to look in the eyes.

Once I traverse this sad bump in the road, I go a step further and think about the why. Why is the cup of my heart filled with these contents? Why can’t I will myself to respond in a way in which I could look back and be proud of? Why do I fall short? Why do I immediately rush to self-justify?

The answer to the why is man’s fallen nature. Nobody wants to drink a spoiled beverage. Clearly, our contents are not being filtered—at least mine aren’t. Not on a consistent basis, anyway. Not outwardly, and most certainly not inwardly in my thought life.

And that brings us back to “self-justification.” It begins with a four-letter word that reveals its own impossibility: SELF. How can any flawed person declare that he or she is now free from responsibility or guilt when he or she is the party in question? There must be an outside intervention for justification to take place. There has to be a filter.

We all fall short. Not one of us has lived a perfect life. I would be hard-pressed to find anybody who has lived even one perfect day. We have an inner yearning to be justified, because we were created with that desire. I believe that we can turn only to the One—the Filter—who placed that desire in our hearts for true, pure, eternal justification. God our Heavenly Father.