Wash Your Cup

Picture a travel coffee cup—one of those really nice spill-proof, leak-proof travel cups. It does it all: keeps your drinks warm and your ice solid. It’s filled with your favorite drink. And to top it all off, it’s super cute too! You love this cup. It is, in fact, your favorite cup. The lid screws on tight, and you never have to worry about it coming open by accident.

After a long day’s worth of work, kids, errands, family, etc., you come home and unload the car of all your things—your purse, your groceries, and lastly your favorite cup. Long emptied of its contents, you take it inside the kitchen, wipe the outside clean of the day’s markings, and set it on the counter, never taking the lid off.

Have you ever had that “takeout” that overstayed its welcome in your refrigerator? No? I’m so proud of you! But for the rest of us, ha! Or maybe that coffee/milk/tea cup that had been left alone so long it started putting down roots? No? Okay, well, I’m not saying I have, and I’m not saying that I haven’t. There’s no judgment here. But sometimes, someone in my family leaves these things out for others to find—waiting for someone else to wash them.

A few years back, I heard a sermon that gave a coffee cup illustration similar to the one above. Only they didn’t just tell the story…they brought in this nasty cup that had been left to grow something worthy of the next alien sci-fi movie. They went on to say that they had used this coffee cup weeks before and had not opened the lid since. They washed the outside of the cup—many times, in fact. It looked nice and shiny. It looked like it was ready to use. Only when they opened the lid was the horror they had allowed to develop revealed.

No matter how many times they washed the outside of the cup, the inside never got clean. It didn’t matter what kind of soap or sponge or even the temperature of the water. Washing the outside will never make the inside clean.

For the last couple of weeks, I feel like the Holy Spirit has been reminding me of this story throughout my everyday life. It has been convicting in big ways and in seemingly irrelevant ways as well.

How often are we going throughout life—big things and small—trying to put all the pieces together? Trying to make the outside of our “cups” look clean, all the while we have funk growing inside of us? How often do we miss out on our healthy uses because we have only been working on things that are seen, and not the inner healing work that can only be done with intentionality and consistency? How often are we keeping the “cups of our lives” closed off to God’s healing work?

If all we ever cleaned of the cup was the outside, the inside would remain a sick mess, dirty and unusable. But when we take the time to open the cup and clean the inside, the outside by proxy is often made clean as well.

Lord, help us to fully surrender and submit to You and what You are doing in our lives. Fill us with boldness and courage to be open to all the ways You are bringing in hope and healing in and through us. Help us to use our yuck to bring glory to Your name and healing to those who are hurting.