Brian Castelli – With His Heart

My commute to work stretched out in front of me like a scroll. I didn’t feel like listening to the teaching mp3’s I had loaded in my player–too heavy. I’d had a bad night and a worse morning. I felt overwhelmed. It seemed like nothing was going right. I felt alone, like no one else could really understand. I reached into the center console and pulled out a Mark Shultz CD. I hoped that a bit of music would lift my spirits.

I inserted the CD into the dash-mounted player. Track 1 played for a moment. No. Skip to track 2. Then 3. Then 4. Ah! That was the one. I Have Been There. One of the choruses reads this way:

Oh I have been there
I know what fear is all about
Yes, I have been there
And I am standing with you now
I have been there
And I came to build a bridge oh so this road could
Lead you home
Oh I have been there

God has been there. He does understand my situation. He understands, not in some abstract, aloof way, but as God-made-man in Christ Jesus. Even when I feel alone, like there’s no one who has been in my shoes before, I can know that He has been there.

I brushed a tear from my eye as I drove. Thank you, Jesus.

I’m reading a very interesting book, “How Full is Your Bucket,” by Tom Rath and Donald O. Clifton. The ideas here are not new, but the presentation is interesting. Covey speaks of the Emotional Bank Account as a very similar idea.

The bucket metaphor is a good one. We all have a bucket. When our bucket is full, we feel good. Not so when our bucket is empty. The idea is to figuratively ladle water into other people’s buckets through positive interactions with them (doing what Covey would call, “making deposits in the Emotional Bank Account”). A kind word. A specific praise. Purposely catching people doing the right thing and praising them for it. (Oh! There’s “The One-Minute Manager!” I told you these ideas are not new!)

The Bible talks about this area, as well. Proverbs tells us that the tongue has the power of life and death. I’ve taken it as a lifetime challenge to speak life into the people around me. The Bible also consistently pictures God’s grace like rain pouring down on us–and filling our buckets!

One thing that is very clear from my readings about this subject: Our objective is not to get other people to fill our buckets. In none of the books I’ve referred to does the author even hint that we ought to be in this for ourselves. No. They consistently and correctly point us to filling other people’s buckets.

One of the clear goals I have for Josiah’s Stand as a ministry is to become a bucket filler. There are hurting people all around us–and no shortage of them among our students–who need (yes need) someone to come along side and encourage them, to ladle the life-giving water of words and relationship into their buckets. A quote from the book says it well:

Whether we have a long conversation with a friend or simply place an order at a restaurant, every interaction makes a difference. The results of our encounters are rarely neutral; they are almost always positive or negative. And although we take these interactions for granted, they accumulate and profoundly affect our lives.

Speak Life!