The last few months have been a season of repentance and a renewed sense of brokenness. By his mercy, God has revealed more and more of my sinfulness and failures. In this weakness, I have come to understand that I must rely on Him even more deeply and even more earnestly. I have learned that there is nothing of this world—neither riches, good health, nor other imperfect people—that can satisfy and eternally comfort the human heart.
One afternoon, I was washing a bowl of beansprouts as part of preparing to cook a hearty soup. The way you wash beansprouts is similar to how you wash rice: you put them into a large bowl and rinse them with water. The key to this process is repetition. You need to flush the beansprouts with at least two (probably three) bowls of clean water in order to ensure that they are clean. No matter how hard you try, the beansprouts will never be clean with only one rinse.
The mechanism by which these beansprouts become clean is actually a process of transferring dirt from these roots to the surrounding water. The first time around, even with the most vigorous of rinses, they will never be completely clean because the surrounding water will remain dirty. Because the water has become saturated with grime, no more dirt can be transferred to the water. In order to truly clean the vegetables, you need to empty its bowl and surround them with a fresh, clean volume of water. Only then, will the beansprouts be clean.
As I was washing these vegetables, I couldn’t help but think about how our hearts are like these bowls of beansprouts. As we live our imperfect lives, our hearts become darkened and stained by sin. I think of our initial struggle as that first bowl of dirty water. No matter how hard we struggle by our human selves, we cannot rid ourselves of this sinfulness. But if we invite God by emptying our hearts, then the Holy Spirit will cleanse our hearts. Emptying means that we must lay down everything—our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our weaknesses, our wretched sin—in front of the throne of grace. For me, it was a prayer to God with a desperate heart that confessed that I am a broken, insufficient sinner who needs Jesus. Our vessels must be empty to be filled anew with what is righteous and good. When we surrender to God as we repent, He restores us.
I think of this past season of life as a period in which my cup was emptied so that it may be filled with the grandeur and glory of God. And finally, I am starting to see that God is granting me a new longing for Him over my deceitful desires.
“You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.” 1 Corinthians 10:21
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.” Matthew 23:25
“I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” Psalm 116:13