when the overflow stops flowing

As a kingdom writer – someone who writes primarily for God’s kingdom, rather than for money (ha!), fame (no thanks), or anything else – I write to help people develop their own relationship with God. And the best way I have found to do that is to share my own relationship with Him.
Whether through sharing my own journey in memoir/ inspirational books, through fiction in my upcoming new release, or through a year long daily encouragement to listen to Him through Scripture, on Substack, everything I write is a direct result of my conversations with Him.
You might say – and I often do – it’s the overflow of our relationship.

In John 7:37-39. Jesus is recorded as saying, “‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive.”
Those rivers of living water are a repeated theme in His Word. in John 4:14, He said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “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.””
And in Psalm 23, that well known passage about God’s abundant care for us, we read “My cup overflows” (v5).
It’s just beautiful imagery, and whether His goodness to us overflows in writing, in acts of mercy, in evangelism or teaching etc – it all comes from Him and His desire to bless us and to bless others in turn.

So when God spoke to me earlier this year and asked me to turn my ‘Walking With Jesus’ writing on Substack into a series of 4 books (one per Gospel), I may have questioned whether I had heard right (4 books is a lot!), but ultimately I knew it was do-able, purely because the content already existed. I wasn’t having to generate something new or come up with some clever new revelation – it was all in my journals already – the overflow of my daily chats with the Holy Spirit.
And my Substack readers have been SO encouraging about how helpful they have found the project, I’m hoping the same will be true for those who prefer to use physical printed versions. God’s blessings to me truly overflowed into blessings for others. So I have been working to present them in book form and they should be available for others soon – watch this space!

HOWEVER…

Not long after, the flow seemed to dry up.
The multiple books are still in process, because they were all written while the Spirit was flowing, and I’m thankful that He poured Himself into me, and therefore into them.
But one day this summer (at the end of an intense season) I came to God in prayer as usual and He told me to stop. Stop writing, stop ministering, stop everything except the basics of looking after myself and family – and just rest in Him. As I stopped and listened, He showed me my heart was struggling because of some very painful things from this year that I hadn’t processed yet, and He wanted to minister into it all.
Then He gave a word of encouragement to a friend for me, from 1 Kings 19 (the story of Elijah when worn out and needing to rest and refuel). He told me through them that I had given out so much I needed to stop, and drink.

Essentially, I was running on empty, and hadn’t realised.

Unless we keep drinking at the same rate as we are sharing, the overflow will simply stop flowing. And if we keep giving without receiving at all, burnout is not far behind.
So I am so thankful He intervened. I am not naturally a patient person, nor someone who likes doing nothing. But still – so thankful.
After the initial couple of weeks of doing the bare minimum, God released me to resume a few things, but warned me that I needed to pay attention to my own heart, and not to get so distracted by busyness that I lost sight of what He still wanted to heal in me. I have had to work hard at not working too hard. I am doing my best to rest and receive.
It’s a work in progress, and I’ve actually been shocked at how difficult it is for me to simply receive – to let God shower me with love and gentle kindness. But oh, I have needed it. And it tastes so good.
And I can say that over this past week in particular, I have started to feel refreshed. I don’t think I’m full enough to properly overflow yet, but where I had forgotten the joy of drinking just for my own sake, it is being restored. And I trust that at the right time, that overflow will be restored too.

And I wanted to share all of this today, to encourage anyone reading. If you have been feeling drained and weary, maybe this is the prompt you needed to stop as much as you possibly can, and focus on receiving too.
For Jesus truly is our source of living water, and we have no need to ever thirst again. But sometimes we forget to stop and drink, and if we keep pouring out regardless, it becomes unsustainable.
So it is my prayer for you and me today that we will find a way to drink deep of His kindness, mercy, and absolute adoring love for us – and to keep drinking until it overflows once more, to everyone around us.
Amen xx