Poured Out

I pour out my heart before you 
and there it lies, 
a puddle in your golden bowl: 
scent of sorrow, undertone of angst. 

You swirl the mixture deftly
and I see the colors whirl
to form a spiral carousel:
black of blindness, counterpoint of pearl

with an interplay of scarlet
(all the dreams I’ve had
now seasoned and remade
into a fragrant ointment by your hand).

My very self is liquid.
All I know is that,
ladled from the pitcher that you hold,
I’m poured out, sacrificed alive.

And I would rather be an offering
proffered by your hand
for whatever purpose you design
than live my life intact, but hard as nails.

Maybe you’ve come to a place where hurts or fears are wrenching, but you pray desperately to God and hand it all over to him. Maybe it’s that you just had an unexpected answer to prayer, and you want to let him know what it means to you. Emptying yourself before the Throne is what I am contemplating today: pouring out whatever we have in grief or in gratitude. It’s biblical:

Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. (Ps. 62:8 NIV)

David was reminding his people to bring their fears to God, the only one who has true, ultimate power and steadfast love. His people must come in trust and be willing to just let it all out—“pour out your hearts.” When we do that, we find release and refuge.

“Pouring out” also is the figure of letting go of control. It honors God as our refuge and strength, the one in charge.

I can list some milestone moments when I knew that one choice was clear: would I just shove ahead and do what I wanted to do, or would I throw myself completely into Jesus’ hands, trusting his love and his purpose?

When I was twenty years old I was questioning my call to missions. I was starting college and I had a boyfriend. We had never discussed whether or not we would consider missions. But I suspected he had other plans. And there was war in many places! What if God wanted me to go to one of them, or to a place where Christians were severely persecuted? Maybe the promptings I had heard in my childhood and my teen years were just emotional moments.

Then at Urbana ’70, the InverVarsity Christian Fellowship Missions Conference, Paul Little’s message showed me what I was doing wrong: instead of just saying “yes” to whatever God’s will was, I was not trusting him. I was scared of what he would require, and that meant that I did not really believe in his goodness and love. Convicted of my self-sufficiency and rejection of him, I gave myself over to him.  It was all I had to give, I realized. I felt “poured out,” like a sacrifice.

At that time I had no idea how God would show me his plan. Looking back, I chuckle at my lack of faith. He was already preparing me, in so many ways, for a life spent mostly in Africa with that man I was so attracted to, with a purpose only the Lord himself could have been putting in place. It did contain many challenges. I wrote the poem above thirty years later during a difficult season! What I was learning was to constantly give my Lord whatever I had to give and let him use it as a fragrant sacrificial offering.

I hadn’t known until doing Bible translation (especially the book of Numbers), that fragrant aromas were an integral part of many sacrifices to Yahweh God. When it comes to considering our personal selves as a fragrant offering, we are to look to the example of the Son of God himself:

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Eph. 5:1 NIV)

When we give ourselves up to God out of love for him, accepting his love for us and then living a life of love, it becomes and increasingly fragrant aroma to those he brings us in contact with. They may not like the scent; they may even distance themselves from it. But others will want to know what that unique fragrance is and may even search for it until they find it. It’s as if we are on exhibit:

But thanks be to God, who always puts us on display in Christ and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. ¹⁵ For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. ¹⁶ To some we are an aroma of death leading to death, but to others, an aroma of life leading to life. And who is competent for this? (2 Cor. 2:14 CSB)

Another example of a fragrant sacrifice is the one that certain women gave Jesus just days before his crucifixion: they poured extremely costly oil, fragrantly spiced, on Jesus. They were giving him what they had to give. He understood both their depth of commitment to him, no matter what people thought, and that this “pouring out” had symbolism way beyond their understanding.

Let’s look at the when Mary poured her perfume on his feet, six days before the Passover feast (John 11-12). She knew Jesus well, and had been one of his most avid listeners even before she witnessed him raising her brother from the dead. We don’t know if she had heard him share that he was going to die in Jerusalem, where he would soon be going. But Mary and her sister Martha were convinced that he was Messiah (Martha told him so, just before he raised Lazarus), and had seen their brother resurrected. What could be done to show their complete devotion to him?

When Jesus and his discisples came back to Bethany on their way to Jerusalem, they gave a dinner for him. Martha was serving the meal, which was her gifting, her way of showing love and respect. Lazarus sat at the table with him. Where was Mary? She finally showed up, bringing with her a container of a precious gift she would use to show her devotion to him:

Then Mary took three quarters of a pound of expensive aromatic oil from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus. She then wiped his feet dry with her hair. (Now the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfumed oil.) (Jn. 12:3 NET)

It was what she had to give him. It said that he was worth anything no matter the cost. And pouring the oil on his feet was the job of a servant, not anyone of status. Mary showed her humility by also wiping his feet with her very own hair. It was an extravagant act of worship of Messiah (the Greek word means “anointed one”, one chosen for a specific service). While Judas Iscariot saw it as a waste of funds, Jesus pointed out that Mary’s timing was one of the signs pointing to what was coming: his death and burial. Not much time was left to be with him; this was a sacred moment in his presence before he would be killed.

Mary did what God had put in her heart, an act of love that would serve as a model to those who witnessed it, and also to us in a very distant future. We are stunned when we understand what was happening as Mary poured out out her love in the best way she could think of doing it.

What do I have to offer the one who gave himself for me?  My very self! My time, my life! It is my surrender to the King of Kings to be his humble servant, expressing my gratitude for my astonishing current status as his own daughter as well! All I am doing is pouring out to him all I have, for him to use as he desires. All I am doing is following his own example!

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children ² and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Eph. 5:1 NIV)