You’ve got nothing left. An empty love tank, weightless and vulnerable. But you want love. Who and what will fill the need?
The water tank was empty. I opened up the lid on the tank and immediately I could smell the residue of silt lying on the bottom of the tank.
No rain had entered the tank for weeks and slowly the water had drained out until now it was empty. Any water in the tank was dirty, putrid, and vile.
I have talked with people who are like this water tank. They have drained their life, emptied their love tank out for the sake of others’ needs, and now there is an emptiness. Often there is a bitterness, resentment and a feeling of being used.
They are also vulnerable.
If a tank is empty of water, it can be quite light. A strong wind can topple it over.
A tank with water in it has a weight to it. It won’t be blown over.
I have found that when people have given out or have been drained by life then there is a vulnerable fragility to them. It’s like they have a hollow emptiness to themselves.
Have you ever been in that situation?
A place where there is an emptiness in you.
An Empty Love Tank
Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, so I am going to suggest that Jesus was also, like us, prone to having his love tank emptied.
He was constantly meeting with people. Listening to them, praying for them, healing illnesses, and taking on religious and legal scholars.
His love tank must have drained low at times, yet he always seemed to have enough for the day.
Who poured love into his tank?
Who attended to his deepest emotional needs?
Some of his disciples did. I think of Mary pouring beautiful perfume over him.
Mary came in with a jar of very expensive aromatic oils, anointed and massaged Jesus’ feet, and then wiped them with her hair. The fragrance of the oils filled the house. John 12:3
I wonder if that met some special need he had of human touch.
Sacrificial, tender love goes in deep to places of dryness where even God without us cannot reach. Christ needed human touch. I wonder if his eyes even got a little moist as she worked the oils into his feet.
There’s a dryness that can only be salved with touch.
Coming back to the source
I have to keep coming back to the purest source of love if my love tank is to have weight and meaning.
I also need the purest of loves as my source if I am going to give out pure love.
Therefore, I have to come back every day to Jesus and drink from his presence.
On the final and climactic day of the Feast, Jesus took his stand.
He cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way. John 7:38
I wonder at times about those who have empty love tanks if they spend time drinking themselves.
Do they have a devotional life where they secret themselves away to a quiet place to spend time in prayer?
“Here’s what I want you to do:
Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God.
Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage.
The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.
“The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant.
They’re full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God.
Don’t fall for that nonsense.
This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need.
With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply Matthew 6:6-9
Seeing the love tank filled
Some thoughts about filling the empty love tank.
- Take responsibility for yourself
Stop making it other people’s responsibility to fill your love tank. It’s your life and no one will ever be enough. You are the one who has to go to that quiet place and be refilled. - Turn off the tap
Stop, for a moment, the giving out to others. It’s not selfish to self-care. Turn off the tap, shut the door, no visitors allowed. - Observe the pull
What is there pulling you to do that seems easy? Is it to check out social media? Is it do anything but be quiet?
It’s so easy to flick into the instantaneous quick hit.
I have found that there is often a strange pull wooing my heart. Something that sings ‘Come away with me’
Rumi says this.Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
I think Jesus would have experienced this pull as a call to spend time with God in the desert or in the mountains.
For me, it is the strange pull to read my Bible, to pray, to listen to music.
But it could also be to write poetry, go for a walk, attend the garden.It’s a strange pull in that it has an allure to it. As I attend to it more, the strangeness has an almost natural ‘Of course this is what I must do’ sense to it.
So the activities of prayer, reading scripture, listening to music become part of the daily routine. My tank is topped up regularly, so much so that I give out, not from a tap down below, but an overflowing abundance above.
- Form it into a habit.
This is what I do. This is who I am. I am known as one who has a full love tank because I have found the source and give out of the abundance and not the dregs.
The Tank is Empty
The tank is empty
I’ve stifled the flow
I’ve given out
More than they would know
I’m a hollow vessel
Empty and forlorn
Smelly residue is all I have
Poisoned resentful scorn
I’ve given out
Poured out all I have
It’s now but a bitter drop
That drips from a rusty tap
I turn the tap
Stop the little flow
Time to receive
More than I would know
I notice that there is something coming in
It’s especially for me
This sacred divine water source
Sparkling fresh and free
I want to turn the tap
And give out the little I have got
But a gentle hand pulls me back
‘This is your sacred lot’
My tank is full
My cup it overflows
Now people receive from the spilling over
Not the dredges down below
I have learned this one thing
That to give I must receive
To spend time with the water source
Let it wash all over me
I cannot give what I do not have
So I carve out time for we
Special time alone with Christ
Water of life trickling into me
Come fill my cup
It’s open to receive
I sit this quiet morning
Love reach out to me
Questions?
Comments?
Email me 🙂📨
barry@turningthepage.co.nz
Give a little gift to keep the pages turning
Quotes to consider
- Only love can soften a hard heart.
Only love can renew trust after it has been shattered.
Only love can inspire acts of genuine self-sacrifice.
Only love can free us from the tyrannizing effects of fear.There is nothing more important in life than learning to love and be loved.Love invites abandon and intimacy.
Love speaks to the depths of our soul, where we yearn for release from our isolation and long for the belonging that will assure us we are at last home.
Love speaks the language of the soul as it awakens our hunger for relationship and connection.Love is the glue of connection.
Love is the source of the deepest wellsprings of human vitality.
Love is the only hope for overcoming our isolation.
Love invites surrender and offers the intimacy and deep connection for which we long.Perfect Love holds the promise of wholeness and holiness.
Love is the welcome that tells us that this is where we truly belong, the assurance that we have at last found our place. David G. Benner. Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality
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Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.
Questions to answer
- When has your love tank felt empty?
- What devotional practices do you use to keep the love tank topped up?
- Above are some quotes from David Benner about love. What are your favourite and why?
Formation exercise
- How is your love tank? Take a rigourous inventory of your life and discern how serious you are about having a secret time and place to ‘be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love’. What do you really love?
Further reading
Barry Pearman
Photo by Anandan Anandan on Unsplash
