A Cup is Just a Cup

A cup is only usable when it is in our hand and our hand uses it.

A cup by itself cannot walk over to the kettle or the coffee pot. It cannot shout, “Use me, Use me!”

A cup sits in the cupboard or on the counter and stays stagnant until such time as a hand picks it up, and then it will be able to fulfill the purpose for which it was created: to hold your beverage.

It was created with a design, a shape and a purpose in mind. A cup is meant to hold liquid. The cup did not decide to be created, there was some thought and action put into it by a creator.

Have you ever noticed how many different cups there are in the world? Big cups, small cups, china cups, mugs, clay, porcelain. The cup had to be molded, shaped and designed in such a way to be the most use to the designer. My cupboard is full of cups of all shapes and sizes and colors.

A shoe is only usable when it is on our feet.

A shoe by itself cannot walk, run, skip or jump.

A shoe sits in the cupboard or on the floor and waits for a foot to slide into it to be able to fulfill the purpose for which it was created.

My goodness how many shoes there are! My mom had a shoe fetish, she loved shoes and she had quite the collection! Shoes for dress up, shoes for walking, shoes for indoors and shoes for outdoors, shoes for working, shoes for running.

The lowly shoe is so useful, I would hate to think of what would happen to my feet if I had no shoes. I get to meet people often who have no shoes or have very sad excuse for shoes working at the Thrift Store. These people have taught me, it is not comfortable or pleasant to have no shoes.

Each cup and shoe is made for a select purpose: the running shoe for running, the high heel for dressing up. It was not like a tennis shoe decided it was no longer wanting to be used for tennis and thought to itself, ‘I think I will become a work boot.’ The idea is very silly to us.

The cup in the cupboard is never going to get bent all out of shape if it is not able to be a coffee pot instead of a cup. This idea has a hard time registering in our minds.

You and me, we were designed by a creator and molded into what He wanted and He has not run out of ideas for uniquely individual created humans. Aside from twins or triplets, humans are each created uniquely and even in the case of twins or triplets, they are not totally identical.

While we can grasp that we might be made uniquely and possibly by a creator we tend to balk at the part where the creator might have designed us for a certain purpose. We each decided what our path would be, who would become. aka: who we want to be when we grow up. If we made those decisions without consulting our creator, it seems to me that it sort of becomes like the cup wanting to be a coffee pot.

Unlike the cup or shoe, our Creator keeps molding us, shaping us, refining us to make us hopefully, more Christlike. That is Gods goal, to conform us into the image of His Son – Jesus. Romans 8:29

If I decide I do not want to become more Christlike, it is like a cup telling the drinker to hold on, because it has decided it does not want to be a cup anymore. Then when the hand puts the cup down, the cup can try to move itself or do something different, but it cannot.

What is my point?

Two things:

1) We are created to become the person God created us to be. He will continue to mold and shape us into that person if we will let Him.

2) We are only useful if we let Him use us. The cup is only useful in the hand of the drinker. The same goes for us, we can think we are doing all these great wonderful jobs for God, but truly the effect will ONLY be miraculous when the designer is holding the created (us). Without God working through us, our work will fall flat and we will probably get really tired trying to do the work. We alone, are powerless to do work on Gods’ behalf, because in reality it must be God doing the work through people: not His people doing the work. Do you get the difference?

We, beloved, are the created, just like the cup and the shoe we are created by a designer for a purpose. He chooses to use us and work through us. It is not the other way around. We do not decide that we are going to work for God and expect Him to bless it.

When Jesus said, “my yoke is easy, my burden is light” Matthew 11:30, it is because Jesus Himself is doing the work. He does the heavy lifting. He is the creator lifting up the cup, He is the creator putting His feet into the shoe. Now I know we are not cups and shoes and have so much more intrinsic value than that, this is simply an analogy.

If you are struggling to do the “work” and wondering how on earth the yoke could ever be though of as easy, perhaps it is because you are pulling the yoke yourself.

Busy, Tired and Stressed are the key phrases in today’s society, but God never intended it to be that way. When God is doing the work through you, all the pressure is off because inside, you know “it ain’t me”, doing it.

Look at Moses – God invited Moses to join Him and be God’s spokesperson to Pharaoh in Egypt. Abraham joined God when God said – “go to a land I will show you.” God shows us where He is working and we then join God in the work He is already doing. God designs the work, not us.

God showed myself and Brian a prayer room in action, before He told us to start one at home. God showed us where He was working and asked Him to join Him in the work. We did not have to invent the wheel, it was already spinning.

Life becomes an adventure and delight as you actually stop “doing” ‘and start “being the person you were created to be.”