What’s in Your Bucket?

Have you ever walked along, carrying a bucket (or even a cup) containing liquid – maybe water – and stumbled, or it got bumped, spilling some of the contents on the ground, or even onto your pant leg or shoe? A bit annoying, maybe, but not a big problem, right?

The credit card commercial asks,
"What's in your wallet?" Better yet,
what's in your bucket?

Imagine, however, if the bucket had contained hydrochloric acid, or lye, or perhaps smelly, spoiled milk. That would have presented much more of an issue for you, wouldn’t it?

Most of us don’t spend a lot of time carrying around buckets or pails, but we each tote around an inner “bucket” we wherever we go. This bucket is filled with attitudes, emotions and feelings that swirl just below the surface of our consciousness. Most people observing us never know what’s there – we might not either – until we get “bumped” and the contents of our inner bucket comes cascading out.

When my friend’s neighborhood homeowners’ association decided to make some changes to enhance safety, one of the residents didn’t respond in a very neighborly manner. Upon hearing about what was being done, this woman called my friend, who heads the association, repeatedly, berating him for implementing changes she didn’t like.

My friend tried to remain patient and cordial, but it was obvious this “neighbor” had no interest in being conciliatory. The neighborhood changes had bumped her “bucket,” spewing its caustic contents out over the phone.

Who knows what set this lady off? Maybe it was something other than the safety changes; they might merely have been the camel-breaking straw that released a bucket full of pent-up anger. Observing what’s happening in our society today, it seems many inner buckets are being bumped with all manner of vitriol spilling out.

Over time I’ve learned to be more even-keeled, but if there’s anything undesirable in my “bucket,” it’s likely to come sloshing out while sitting behind the wheel of my car in traffic, surrounded by folks who seem to have learned to drive just yesterday. Even then, that’s no excuse for losing control emotionally. So how can we avoid being like “Angry Agatha” who verbally abused my friend?

The secret, as the Scriptures teach us, is to make certain we’re filled not with negativity, but with the fruit of God’s Spirit. As Galatians 5:22-23 tells us, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” If this “fruit” – evidence of God living in us spiritually – fills us, even when adverse circumstances arise, these are what spills out.

Rather than exploding in anger when a child makes a mess, we’ll be more disposed to respond with kindness and understanding. We’ll treat people that annoy us with gentleness and love, not hatred, ire and disrespect.

We’re also instructed to “be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18-19). Another passage expresses it this way: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Ephesians 4:29).

Ultimately this is only possible through a daily, deepening relationship with the Lord that results in “out with the old, in with the new.” Ephesians 3:17-19 speaks of the desire, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpassed knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Just as fighting fire with fire is futile, attempting to battle the angry world around us with anger is also pointless. Instead, we can have the greatest impact when we reflect the character and qualities of the God we know and serve. “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 John 4:16).

Let’s make certain that the next time our buckets get bumped, as they certainly will, what pours out is the love and grace of God, rather than something else.