My cup runs over

Our moods ebb and flow in cycles. We are oft desensitized to that because of contemporary lifestyles, diets, “feel the same every day” stimulants or the demands of life.

So, as I am feeling spiritually flat right now, I googled that and found a topic at the top of my search list, which seemed off subject. It was about menstruation.

Before artificial light dominated our world, the full moon stimulated the pineal gland to induce ovulation, but the darkness of a new moon induced menstruation.

That ebb and flow ensures her mystique. The menstrual pause heightens sexual sensitivity, to add the tension that saves the relationship from becoming predictable.

Now, the spiritual ‘heart’ is like a womb: a receptacle of God’s word, so biblical seasons were also tied to the moon, predicting a cycle that will see times of reflection in the shadows and times of intensity in His light.

The notion implied, draws on Isaiah 60, which says, “Arise shine, your light has come”. It alludes to the reflective nature of the moon, which can only shine as it faces the sun’s glory.

It is erroneous for spiritual souls to expect a perpetual high in their faith and it is as wrong to use artificial stimulants like pumped up music and pulpit rhetoric, to keep us on that high. We must ebb and flow to know the contrasts of reflection and exhilaration.

However, the times of reflection and shadows, should yearn for glory. Metaphorically speaking, waiting for a wife to complete her cycle should heighten sensitivity to the glory of that union.

Holy pauses precede great moves of God, as in the 400 silent years before the birth of Christ, the 3 day wait before Israel crossed the Jordan, the half hour pause in heaven, and so on.

What happens in menstruation informs spiritual engagement too. Prior to that the womb lines itself in readiness for yearns for that fulfillment, which is every woman’s deepest cry.

I think here of how Sarah yearned, over decades, for her barrenness to yield to conception and for God’s promise to be fulfilled in her. The same spiritual yearning is in all of us.

When the time passes and fertilization doesn’t happen, the womb sheds its lining and “builds a new nest”, in perpetual hope, like the inerrant rise and fall of our spiritual yearnings.

How often we press in, hungry for God, primed for breakthrough and in such need of the spiritual pinnacle that life denies us: until, like a wave one of those cycles breaches the rocks and overflows.

Then instead of shedding, our “cups will run over”. Every preceding response to God will reach a perfect moment of fulfillment that will catch the heart of God and fuse with His intent to conceive the richness of His purpose for our lives.

(c) www.facebook.com/peter.missing.3