Wednesday, August 3, 2011

What Are You Full Of?

When I was in high school, I worked at a local restaurant called Olde Colony Steakhouse.  It was located at the Roseview Shopping Center along Highway 72 in Collierville.  I started there as a busboy at the age of fifteen.  I had already worked a year at the Townhouse Restaurant, where I developed my own system of clearing the tables, loading and unloading the dishwasher, and putting the dishes away.  I was meticulous about my job, and thought I knew everything there was to know about cleaning a restaurant kitchen.  But shortly after I started at Olde Colony, I learned about the grease pit.

It was a busy night, and I was working hard to keep up with the demand for clean tables and dishes.  All of a sudden, the floor drains started backing up with something foul.  It was watery, but it was more than water.  Billy, the other busboy who was senior to me, knew what was going on.  Something had clogged the drains from the grease pit, and it was backing up into the kitchen.  With a smirk on his face, he told me to grab a bucket and follow him outside.

As Billy opened the lid to the pit, he asked, with a smirk, “Have you ever done this before?”  I looked down and saw a pit full of stuff that had gone through the garbage disposal.  The stench was overwhelming!  He told me to start bailing the contents of the pit into a garbage container, and to keep going until I reached the bottom.  He went back inside, and I scooped, poured, and gagged for what seemed to be forever.  When I finally reached the bottom, the drains started working again.

You’re probably wondering why I’m writing this story.  Well, I’m a guy, and we just like to tell stories like this.  But it also brings to mind a question I’ve asked myself ... “What are you full of?”  The Bible tells us to be filled with the Spirit.  In order to be filled, we first have to allow Him to empty us of ourselves and our sinfulness.  If we are filled with the Spirit, we will experience the joy that only He can bring.  But if we harbor sin, even just a little bit, we are robbed of experiencing the fullness of God’s joy and peace.  Any sin that we hold onto becomes a clog, like the clog in the grease pit.

We can’t empty ourselves on our own.  But if we are willing to humble ourselves and ask God to do it, He will get the bucket and start bailing until all the disgusting junk is gone!

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