Don't Empty Your Bucket

Don't Empty Your Bucket

So often we spend the week,solving problems, serving the family, community and the world and we can sometimes feel guilty if we stop to take a breather to reflect and refresh ourselves. 


 I want to encourage you to make a bold move to improve your life by stepping back to breathe.  This action should be a part of our daily lifestyle so that we don't ever empty our buckets. We were not created to go non stop as if we were a train running endlessly down the tracks, stopping only to fuel ourselves and pickup more baggage and passengers.  We were created in the image and likeness of God and even he took time off to rest and reflect.  He got off to himself to pray, meditate and ponder his assignment.  So that means that we too have the same capacity and need to rest our minds, reinvigorate our bodies and enlarge our spirits.


To keep your bucket full it is necessary to go within and if you are not use to going within, you will need to be patient with yourself.  This need not be complicated.  The going in does not have to be an active searching for something, but rather simply an awareness, a quiet looking.  It is more passive than active.  Just being still.


Sometimes, just to go out into nature...is really going in.   I remember when living in Chicago I use to deliver newspapers very early in the morning before the sun rose.  My route was on South Shore Drive and after delivering my papers sometimes I would walk over to the park and watch the rabbits and squirrels play, hear the birds sing their good morning songs, look at the sun come up over the water, see the orange sun illuminate the waters and grow into a bright yellow hue.  The waves would pant against the shore so lightly as if singing a meditative chant and I would look up to see the clear blue sky standing still as if to say to me, just be, just be.


My bucket was being filled and I became the better for it.