Empty Cup

For a few weeks now Jay Chou's "Qi Li Xiang" has been stuck in my head. Been years since I first listened to it but out of nowhere it suddenly keeps playing in my head...

Anyway, I watched Forbidden Kingdom a few weeks back, the movie with Jackie Chan and Jet Lee.

There was one scene in the movie that really struck me.

The protagonist was this kid who watched a lot of Kung-fu movies and was magically transported into another world or another time. It was the world or time of Sun Wukong the Monkey King.

Anyway, there was one scene after Jackie Chan's character agrees to train the protagonist to learn Kung-fu. Jackie was sitting around a camp fire and the protagonist initiates some small talk. Something about what he wants to learn next.

He was saying he wants to learn, "Buddha Palm" or "Tiger Strike" or "Rising Talon" (I'm just making up the names at this point), basically some of the stuff that he watched from Kung-fu shows. He was so full of this stuff in his head and was ranting at how he wants to learn it.

The protagonist was at this point holding a cup of water and drinking from it and the cup was full. Jackie's character then said something like, "You're cup is full. How can you learn when you are already full? Empty your cup!"

It was a metaphor but the protagonist took it literally and he threw away the water in the cup. At this Jackie's character sighs and says, "This is hopeless," and he walks away.

That particular scene struck me because it remind me of how sometimes we think we know everything about God and His love and there is no room to really experience it; we're so full of head knowledge that we miss out on having that everyday experience with Him.

There's no real experience because everything is head knowledge. Our cup is already full.

How then can we "empty our cup"? For me it was when I started expecting. I had to come to a point where I bring an empty cup before Him and ask Him to fill it. I do not want to fill it with my own head knowledge. I want Him to fill it with His touch; His word for me.

As the camp draws near I want to come expecting and not come in with a full cup. I cannot wait for Him to fill my empty cup!