Have you ever felt your mind was overloaded with thoughts? There is just too much going on in your head!

  1. You try to be still with God, either to pray for needs or just be with Him … and you can’t focus.
  2. Or you try to fall asleep, and your mind doesn’t slow down.

I was meeting with a friend and we both agreed, there is so much going on in the world, our families, work, health, etc. Not only for us, but this experience seems to be common for everyone we talk to.

Sometimes it feels like our heads are so full that they might explode.

Have you ever felt that way?

Is so much going on that you feel you don’t have the capacity to deal with it all?

When my friend and I are together, we like to pause and ask God if He would want to say anything specific to us.

As we listened in quiet, I saw a picture in my mind of a bucket with a hole in the bottom. The capacity to function as designed was being compromised at a rapid pace. Then I saw a ladle being dipped in the bucket draining it faster. It was almost empty.

My friend shared first and said she sensed God saying,

“My mercies are new every morning.” What a great Bible verse from Lamentation chapter 3. Great reminder to us all.

Then as she shared that I saw a second bucket in my mind. This one was new and shining clean. There were no holes.

I sensed God say, this second one is your real bucket. This is the reality of you as a new creation.

This bucket cannot be damaged in any way.

Wow. I hadn’t thought of the bucket that God gives us as new creations. This reminded me of several Bible verses such as:

2 Peter 1: 3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life.
Ephesians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

We talked about how easy it is to forget our reality as new creations. We tend to judge things by what we see and feel. But in God’s Kingdom, that is not the whole picture.

I knew when I saw the two buckets, we have a choice of which one to live from.

Mental pictures like this one paint a scene to help us see God’s reality. God had a fuller picture to show us, and it was such a relief.

The next day I received a reminder of this truth in a devotional from teacher and writer MARSHA BURNS:

Let your faith triumph in trouble by trusting in your God and establish yourself in the peace that is beyond understanding. You have every right to be concerned and unhappy except for the truth that I am with you, says the Lord.

2 Corinthians 4:18 As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. ESV

Your Turn:

I invite you to take this mental picture of the two buckets, the Bible verses, and this quote and talk to God about them. Give Him some time to show you anything else He has to say. We know it is Him when it lines up with His character and His written word.

Comment below or contact me here. Let me know what you think.

Shell