Don’t scrape the bottom of the barrel anymore

Deb Peacock

God gave me the picture of a barrel. The barrel represented a person and he said “you have been scraping the bottom of the barrel and now it is empty.”

The barrel is meant to be full of clean and beautiful liquid, the love of the Lord and the grace of Jesus. The identity of a person given by the Father is in the liquid. The loving kindness and joy of being in close relationship with the Father is held in the there in the liquid. The words of life and love from God are the liquid.

Then he showed me the lining of the barrel and it had dried out, looking cracked and leaking. The depletion in the barrel had, over time meant that the lining had dried up and become brittle. It looked irritated. The lining represented the oil of the Lord - his covering over the person. While it was dried up and cracking, the breakage meant that the liquid inside would simply leak out. So putting in the goodness helped only a short while before it fell out the bottom or sides of the barrel.

Then I saw the Lord pouring oil over the lining, his anointing oil pouring in. It was coming in as the person came to the Lord to worship him. The person came to declare God as Lord and God almighty above all else. They put aside their troubles and their needs and their aches and pains of life and chose to praise the Lord first and foremost. It was difficult to do. So many nagging troubles were beckoning and screaming for attention. But it was right and good to commit and reinstate that the Lord was more important and he came first and foremost amidst it all. This choice and action meant the person came in again, into the house and presence of the Lord for the day. And without reservation, the oil of the Lord flowed forth. It poured out and into the barrel moistening the dry lining and allowing the lining to be flexible and the cracks to heal. Points of irritation were soothed over. Cracks of insecurity were dissolved away. The barrel was then ready for the filling up.

It was so important for this barrel to receive this oil first, for the time and commitment to be in the Lord’s presence just because he is first and he is foremost in life. Then when the words of the Lord, the loving words, the destiny words, the identity words and the grace of Jesus came, it could be held. And as the water poured into the ready barrel, it filled up so quickly! A fast pour and a fast fill!

As the liquid poured in there were nuggets of gold dropping in as well. The person wanted to give this away, knowing others who needed this love, needed this grace and the word of God for their lives. But God showed that the nuggets needed to stay in the barrel tossing around refining a little and splinting shards off into the barrel itself. Then as the liquid continued pouring in at fast pace, the nuggets would eventually lift up and flush out of the barrel. The flushing out was the time for the word to be released forth where it was meant to go. And so, as wonderful and kind as God is, his word for someone else had deeply blessed and refreshed the messenger he had given it to as well.

Don’t scrape the bottom of your barrel anymore. Come to the Lord in prayer and thanksgiving, worship him with all your might despite the tempest of the storm raging around. Hold him as number one. From there you will be restored into security and steadfastness in him. Your insecurities will dampen down, for you will be sure of you in the Lord. Your sensitivities to hurt and offence will diminish for you are full of God’s word to you. Stay under the filling fountain of the Lord and he will impart wonderful words, gifts and messages for you to give to others at the right time.

Don’t scrape the bottom of your barrel anymore. Instead look up and receive from the fast flowing fountain of the Lord.

John 4:13-14

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Psalm 36:9

For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.

Jeremiah 2:13

My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.