The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. (Psalm 24:1)
God often spills when he pours; and sometimes, so do I.
Water, juice, soft drinks, milk, sauce,
and the worst of my own self I have spilled. Splattered the countertop, the stovetop, the table, the floor, and the people I dearly love.
I rush for wipes, a cloth, a mop. And to eliminate leftover stickiness and the thin film of sweetness sought by flies and other insects, I scour their landing places.
The spill owned only by God is never an accident. Rarely contains an invitation to winged and crawly things; just ask Moses.
The spill owned only by God is living water; just ask the Son.
And like the repentant sinner in the fifty-first Psalm, I am weak and strong enough to kneel, hold up my empty cup.
And what of chapter twenty-three, verse five, that awesome overflow?
All that runs over the brim of me, I ought to steer it away from the gutter.
Gather up every drop.
And to the one who smells of no bath in a month, whose bed is the sidewalk, whose silence is broken by two words scribbled with a shoplifted marker on a piece of cardboard gifted by the wind,
“Anything helps.”
Or to some other soul who might live in a house every neighbour covets, who skips the dishes three times a day, yet the throat is quick to dry.
From the spill I gather, still owned only by God,
offer to all, the same water Christ offered
to the sinner at the well.