How full is your cup?
by Mark Gierus
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The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love (Psalm 103:8).
Read Psalm 103:1–8
Do you ever get frustrated with others around you because they seem to do the same thing that irritates you or lets you down? Do you have those friends who always cancel a catch-up at the last minute? Does that make you angry because it happens so much? Do you have children who continue making the same mistakes over and over again, and no matter how much you try to change them, it happens again?
Wouldn’t it be terrible if God had a human heart? Would he become irritated when we continue to sin in the same way repeatedly? Or perhaps he would get frustrated or become angry because we are not doing any better in trying to live a perfect life.
What a blessing for us that God doesn’t have a human heart, but rather a heart for humans! In this psalm, King David shares God’s heart with us. The Lord gets it, and he gets us in our human flesh and the sin that we so often fall into. The Lord is slow to anger in our failing, and when we sin, the Lord is compassionate and gracious toward us. He abounds in love, loving us so much that he sent his only Son, Jesus, to suffer and die for our sins.
God loves us no matter what we do or what we have done in the past. He will continue to love us tomorrow and always because he is abounding in love. God loves us, demonstrating his amazing love on the cross where his only Son died for us, and fills us with his love to overflowing.
Your cup of life is filled with the blessings God’s gives you day by day to overflowing, so that when you face your frustrating challenges of daily life or you find yourself becoming angry over circumstances or people, it is God’s amazing grace and love that will lead you into actions of love, compassion and kindness toward others. And this is all because God loves you first.
O Lord, thank you for your great patience with me every day. Instead of judging my failings, you choose to show me compassion. Guide me, Lord, day by day in your grace and love, so that I live as one whose cup is overflowing with your love, which I can show to others. Help me to be slow to anger with others, just as you are patient with me. Amen.
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