In what ways do you seek to fill your emotional bucket?

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The following message is one I preached in the Commonwealth Church in London. Friends of mine, Rod and Julie Anderson, and I’m Minister this like, way back in 2018. Some time and just by happen chance came across it today and thought I honestly thought as I was listening to it, I thought, Man, I feel like I lead to sit and hear this myself and to kind of because I’m recalibrating after a very emotional, emotionally up and down season over this past summer. And this was just a timely reminder.

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Now I realised most of the time this daily messages are much shorter. This is about 45 minutes long. So listen to what you will. Don’t listen to what you don’t, all good. But really in it. I speak about filling our emotional bucket coming and allowing Jesus to fill our soul and bring us into a place of peace and wholeness. I think it’d be something that will speak to certainly some of the people who are listening, and I pray that it would be a great blessing to you.

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Okay if I just be myself this morning. Yeah. I found that God works better when we just quit trying to be someone. You know, that God works through people. God has his way through people. God speaks through people. And if we’re trying to be someone or something that we’re not, we’ve got some kind of aspiration to appear a certain way to others. It’s like we actually get in our own way and we get in his way. And there’s a lot of truth in Hebrews chapter for War.

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It says when we cease from our own works, it gives him room to go to work. So I’m going to do my best to do that. I’m going to do my best to get out of my own way and let Jesus have some space. I always speak to the Lord. If I’m speaking somewhere, I just speak occasionally. Now I always ask a Lord and spend some time. I sat down the other day and my family have just moved home. So we’ve moved down to a place called Burgess Hill, moved out of London, and Lee in the least fit suburbs of some little place down south.

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And I actually like, peace and quiet. I like, I’m a peace and quiet guy. I’m like a country boy at heart. So I’m like, oh, yeah. And then I’ll come back into London, and it’s like the district lines down. There’s a breakdown on the A three. There’s a half marathon. I’m like. So I’ll go go here and here and here and here and here and here to get to Church. I’m like phrase God for Burgess Hill, I can walk from one end to the other in 20 minutes.

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But as you know, like moving, moving home is a busy thing, and God is a way maker. He’s a promise keeper. He’s a miracle worker. He is a light in the darkness. But, you know, something. God is a great friend. Got a great friend. I sat down with him and I say, Lord, I’m speaking on Sunday. What do you want me to say? Because I’ve been so busy. Anyone get busy here? Sometimes you know what you should be doing. You know where your priority should be, but you get busy doing all sorts of other stuff.

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And so, Lord, I’m speaking at. He says, My Darling son, that’s nice. He says, It’s good to speak with you again. How funny is it that life suddenly takes a turn and you ditch these moments for other things I’m like. And then he goes, he goes, no, precious son. But remember that it’s my voice that becomes the pathway that your feet walk upon. How about that? It’s my voice that becomes the pathway that your feet walk upon. My words are the bridge to your bright future.

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A future built on surety and not supposition. I will hold you up sun. And my words will be the Bull work bulwark against all that the world might throw you. So I looked up this word, surety. And a future built on surety, not Supposition. Surety. A guarantee, a promise, a pledge and assurance. It means freedom from care. That one drop a life filled Insurity, not supposition. Freedom from care. Freedom from danger, safety, security. It means stability and a state of peace. It means confidence, certitude. It means one who makes himself responsible for another.

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My Daddy is responsible for my future. And his voice is the pathway that I walk on. It’s so important that we hear his voice. And, no, I’m not talking about hearing a preacher. I’m talking about his voice speaking to our heart. I’m talking about my Darling son. Supposition, on the other hand, means a belief held without proof or certain knowledge and assumption. An assumption. And I think that times we hold a belief. It’s not necessarily without proof, but we’ve not got certain knowledge of it because certain knowledge doesn’t come just by knowing about it comes from his speaking within us.

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You know, there is a big difference between gods speaking and you? Ve got to hear me right here. Okay? Just hear me, right? Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. There’s a big difference between God speaking here, this thing and God speaking here. And this book on faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God. Just remember that faith doesn’t come by the word of God. I’m saying, listen, listen, hear me, right? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God. It’s the hearing that becomes the pathway.

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The man who builds his house on the rock is a man who hears and does what he says. You know, the guy built on the sand is that he heard. I didn’t do. And I just want to encourage you today to really open your heart to the voice of Jesus. And I want to talk to I want to talk really, from the perspective of Jesus as a very, very real friend, a very real friend to us. I love this. He said the ear of the Church, speaking of you guys, is toward me, leaning in to hear what I have to say.

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That’s a really strong commendation of the heart of this this house. I have something that I want to share. I’m so desperate to to somehow communicate something that’s really beginning to change my life in a profound way. Yeah. And I’m like, I’m really kind of digging into my heart and God help me to communicate this in a way that translates from what’s happening in here to what goes in here. When you hear Lee like that prayer, Lord, that we would have ears to hear what the spirit is saying because it’s not something that’s necessary.

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Easy to communicate. It’s not something that I find easy to communicate because it’s kind of brand new to me. And let’s begin by turning to 1 Thessalonians 5:23. So let’s turn that. It’s funny. I so want to do justice to what the Holy Ghost wants to say. You’re really nervous. It says he the very God of peace. Sanctify you Holy. I pray that God, your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved, blameless. So the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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I don’t what I want to bring out this morning. I want to, you know, this idea of being a three part being. Okay. So we are a spirit. We have a soul. We live in a body. You know, there’s a distinct the Bible does distinguish between these three. We’ve got the new mother, the spirit, the UK, the soul. I’m pretty sure that’s probably not how you say it. And the Soma, which is the body. I am a spirit. You are a spirit. You are a spirit. You have a soul mind will emotions, affections aversions.

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And you live in a body. You’ve got this temporary kind of tent that we live in until such a time as we get given a new one. What I want to talk about is our soul. It means that the seat of our feelings, our desires, our affections and our versions. It’s the seed of our emotions. As for many years. And I’m sure that this would be true for quite a number of people here. I was so focused on my spirit life and woefully neglected my soul.

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In fact, in fact, they even Lee prevailing teaching was, you don’t take any notice of your feelings, you know, it’s not about feeling. It’s all about faith. Yes. Anyone that kind of been there. You kind of just, you know, I feel this, but I deny it, man. I’m just going to confess the word, you know, maybe I’ll pray some more. Maybe I’ll fast some more. Lee let you into a secret. You are a complete person. You are a whole person now. We might use some of these distinctions to help us understand the workings of our humanity.

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We might use these distinctions to help us to grow as people and to understand where certain things, how certain things work so we can operate more effectively. But you are not the splinted individual and you cannot neglect one area of your being and fully operate in the other areas. If you neglect your body, guess what. Your spirit is going to have a hard time properly functioning if you neglect your soul, if you neglect your emotional life, the life of your mind and all of those things, your spirit is going to have a hard time fully finding expression because there’s going to be things that block its pathway to actually reach out and connect with the world.

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I met a lot of preachers who are the most onerous people on the planet, their spiritual Giants. And it’s like their emotional life is some stunted little boy performing for the circus. I’ve been there. And the funny thing is actually the roots of some of the ways that we act out is actually in the brokenness of asshole. We look to be satisfied. There’s this thing in our soul, in our feelings in that is seeking affirmation or seeking satisfaction, seeking something. And, you know, some people get they get into Ministry and suddenly they find that makes me feel good.

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I feel important. I feel wanted. I feel special or into a relationship or whatever it may be. And the way that kind of God brought me round to begin to look at this more in more depth in my own life. There are a couple of things, really, but my dad died last year and my dad and I, it wasn’t that we didn’t see eye to eye, but there wasn’t a great deal of deep, hard to hard communication. He was Lee like many men. He was a pretty closed book emotionally.

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And, you know, I guess throughout my life I was looking for the kind of affirmation that a father can give. But, you know, I’d get into Church life and I’d be looking for it from the pastor or whatever whatever authority figures were placed before me. It was an unhealthy and unhealthy route in my own soul that was looking for something from them that they could never give. I told you, I’m trying to be real. And what I found is that what I’ve noticed as I’ve observed my own life is that there are so many different things that people look to to satisfy and feel their emotional bucket.

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It’s like an emotional bucket that we have on the inside and Lee going to fill it somewhered. It’s like Emmanuel recognised me. Recognise me. Recognise me. You know, I’m in the pool pit. You know, I’m feeling special now. I’m feeling recognised. I’m feeling significant and feeling important. And my emotional bucket is feeling up. Yes. And we can look for it in so many different things. But what God showed me because I actually noticed this. I thought, Man, it’s like it’s like a little door opens for us in whatever it may be, it might be success in business.

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It might be in a relationship. It might be in some kind of generally a relational transaction of some time. And a little drop of affirmation comes and suddenly were like a Dyson Super sucker. The 700 over. And it’s like, we get a little drop. And suddenly it’s like, and we want to fill this bucket. I noticed that even in my own marriage, I noticed, like, man, I’m trying to get something from Larna that you’re honestly, man, I’m like, I’m like a desert sucking in the rain cloud.

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And I sat down as I do. Like I say, I mean, Jesus and I are good friends. And I said, what is that thing? Why? Why? Why am I like that? And I know I’m not the only one. And he took me to this the woman at the well. And in John chapter four. And I love this story. I love this story. And let’s turn to John 4:5 will start verse five. And Jesus comes to the city of Samaria, which is called Psycha, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

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And Jacobs well was there. And Jesus was weary with his journey. And he sat on the well. It was about the 6 hours. So it was about noon. It was midday. It was the heat of the day. It was hot. You know, people don’t come out to collect the water in the heat of the day. But Nevertheless, Lee is sitting. And then a woman of Samaria comes to draw water. And Jew said to give me a drink. And she said to him, how is it that you being a Jew as a drink of me, which I’m a woman of Samaria, for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

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Now it is my. But, you know, we find out later on a little bit more about this woman. But it is my kind of supposition we were talking about. Supposition is my understanding that, you know, because this was not the typical time of day that you would go out to fill your water vessels, that this lady wasn’t coming out with the rest of the brood of women. She was rejected. She was ostracised. She felt very much alone. And she would come out when there was no one else there.

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And even here, the Jesus begins to interact with her. And she’s like, now, why are you talking to me? Don’t you understand that? I’m kind of you’re not supposed to talk to someone like me. And Jesus said, if you knew you the gift of God and who it is. Let’s say to you, give me a drink. He would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water and the woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with. And the well is deep from whence will you get this living water?

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Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us this well and drank there of himself and his children and his cattle? And Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks of this water shall first again. But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I get give him shall be in him. A well of water springing up into everlasting life. And the woman said, sir, give me this water that I first not neither. Come here to draw.

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And then we get a little insight here. Jesus said to her, Go and call your husband and come back. Come here. And the woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to a, you have well said, I have no husband for you have had five husbands, and he whom thou now has is not the husband in this, he said truly. And the Holy Ghost pointed out to me, said, you know, this is emotional drain that you want to put on people, this requirement of your heart for this bucket to be filled.

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I mean, Lee, the thing is, there’s a lot of legitimate needs of the heart. You are not just a spirit. And hear, hear me. You do not just need Jesus or he would have put you on an island somewhere. There are legitimate needs of our soul that are equally as important and equally as valid as the needs of our spirit. And one of the biggest mistakes that I made in my development and my progress is this neglecting the emotional area of my life and giving no attention to the emotion, my emotional wholeness as a man, as a person not recognising, I guess number one, the validity of those needs and desires and longings and also not in not giving them a proper attention, not understanding that they are at work anyway, did they are affecting all of my relationships.

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They are affecting all of my transactions. They are affecting all of my pursuits in Ministry and all of these other things that we might put our hand to. All of that stuff on the inside is still at work and still affecting everything you think and do and say and feel. And sometimes we don’t want to look at it because, man, it’s a mess. It’s the little boy whose dad never really sat down with him and filled his emotional bucket. It’s a little girl who longed for her mother’s affirmation, but Mum just wasn’t there for her or it’s the teacher who rejected the great work that you did and didn’t recognise it.

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I realise that this is not kind of. It’s not just easy to communicate and I don’t want to get all psychological, okay. I don’t want to get all kinds of bog down in the weeds, like I’m drowning in such a man. But what I want, what I want to encourage is that you come to the well. You know, the woman wasn’t coming when she said, Give me this water. You know, the well that she was going to was marriage after marriage. After marriage, after marriage, I have a deep thirst in my soul.

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And I believe that a man can fill that first. And when the man didn’t fill the hole or the man ran off because he’s like, Man, what is this that I’ve married, she’s on to the next one. And so when she says, Give me this water, she’s not saying, man, I’m kind of thirsty. Could you just put a tap in my apartment? She’s saying, I’ve got a thirst on the inside that I have desperately been trying to find some relief from. And I am so broken.

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I’ve gone so far as to even live with a man in Shind. Now we’re not talking 21st century London, first century. Samaria, you better believe me. She was going out when no one else was there. The poor woman was so full of shame, so broken, so utterly despised that she couldn’t even she didn’t even have a friend to go out with. She wouldn’t go out in the early morning when it was cool. And she says, Give me this water. And that’s what I started saying when I felt that.

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And you like, you know, I might come into a Church like this. I don’t know, know. I’m trying to think of, you know, and, you know, you might start feeling all right. Well, the pass to say Hello or, you know, something you now I don’t know what kind of interactions you look for, you know, whatever it may be. But when I began to notice those, like, little kind of things in my heart that we’re reaching out for someone to satisfy something in me that I knew.

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Man, it’s my emotional bucket that I’m trying to feel. And I’m not trying to fill it in the right way. Jesus, give me this water. Give me this water. Give me this water. Because the thing is, Lee has a tendency to take this lovely emotional bucket that we begin with as a baby that satisfied on the breasts of our mother in the arms of our father. And, you know, hopefully that’s the way my wife wasn’t Larna’s emotional bucket was didn’t have mum to look after, didn’t have dad.

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She was even told by her grandparents. Or that is too important to come and spend time with you. And so often times I’m going to be okay if it were like this. But more often than not, just through things that happen, we end up looking a bit more like this. I guess I don’t want to be too romantic, but and we’re going through life like this. Fill my bucket. Fill my bucket, please, fill my bucket, please fill my bucket. Please fill my bucket, please. I want to be important.

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I want to be noticed. I want to be understood. I want to be recognised. Please, for my bucket. Please recognise me. Please understand me. And because this I know wants to feel like that. He wants to see this. Who wants to look at themselves and see this? And so we maybe put it behind there. Or we kind of maybe we could hide it behind Ministry. Maybe I could become a really important Minister. Maybe I could have a big congregation. And or maybe I could be a great businessman, my ipad and my laptop.

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And, you know, my wallet, wherever it is. Maybe maybe I could fill my bucket with money. Maybe that will satisfy me. Or I felt a bit odd getting on the train with a bucket and a hammer. Honestly, I thought I thought someone was going to pull pull the emergency like that. There’s a Nutter on the train. There’s one of those terrorist dudes, man. Yeah, it’s okay. I’m a Church Minister. Even worse, it’s a religious Nutter, you know, Jeremiah chapter 2:13

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For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me the fountain of living waters and Hun out for themselves. Systems broken systems that can hold no water. And you know, when Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, he didn’t say, I’m going to fill your bucket come every day and I’ll fill your bucket because he understood that you can’t really feel that you can keep pouring in. And like I sometimes I know in the past I’ve tried to fill this bucket with experiences, spiritual experiences, you know, early nineties outpouring and different things.

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You can keep coming. And Like, fill my bucket. Fill my bucket. Come, Lord Jesus, come down, Jesus, come down, come down in our midst. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but Jesus has actually got something better than that. He said, this is going to be like a well, like a fountain within you springing up to everlasting life. I’m not coming to the waters to drink. I’ve got the water springing up within me. Give me this water. Give me this water so I don’t have to come here again and again and again and again.

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So I don’t have to keep going through the same motions and the same cycles and going round the same mountains in my heart. And my thinking, Lord, give me this water like a fountain within my heart springing up to everlasting life. Psalm 23 says he leads us by still waters and that he restores asshole. I really want to encourage you, man. And I always believe in, you know, that there are practical applications to what we teach. And I relight that this is not a subject that often tackled.

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I mean, maybe it is. I don’t know. I know. It wasn’t tackled very often in my journey. You know, in fact, sometimes it was frowned upon. You start talking about your emotional life and all of that kind of stuff. And it was like, Give me the spirit thing, you know what you’re talking about. But I found as I get older and as I’ve got older, that unresolved issues. We’ll always find expression at some point in the journey. Yeah. Where the Father has not been given access, where we’ve not come to the well and said, Jesus, give me this water can fill this gaping hole in my heart.

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Come fill this need for whatever it may be significant, understanding, affirmation, affection, success. And I just want the Father to change my perspective so dramatically, so radically come in and transform the way I approach life. So I’m no longer reaching out to something outside of myself to satisfy that which resides within me. But I understand that there is an in dwelling presence that is like a fountain springing up on the inside that can continually turn my desert soul into an Oasis. And then from that place of overflow, we can begin to actually reach out to others.

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And I found there’s only been so far that I can reach in my brokenness. I’m not talking brokenness in the right sense. You know, there are lots of terminologies Lee use in Christianity that, you know, we can get a bit mixed up about, you know, the brokenness that God is looking for is where we come. And we say, Give me this water. I recognise my own inadequacy to fulfil this need in my heart. I recognise. Not that I don’t deny my need for affection. I don’t deny my need for significance.

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I don’t deny my desire to be understood, to be recognised, to be known. But, Lord, I’m not going to try and get it from everyone else and everywhere else. You too, Lee. I was felt in adequatement with my dad because I was kind of an arty type. And he was Northern builder. I just felt so pony, so, like, weak and pathetic. Now it’s not necessarily how he saw me. It’s more about how I saw myself, you know, and I always looking for some kind of affirmation there.

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And then I thought, Well, if I if I can really succeed in business, then my emotional bucket will be filled. But guess what if I succeed in Ministry? Well, my wife and I planted three or four churches. We did okay. I was still empty, like the woman coming day after day, it would get filled. And then I’d be back and be like, oh, man, I’m thirsty and I would go and I would get filled. And then I’d come back and I was thirsty. And and the same in our business.

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I got a great business running now. German. It’s like, how a surprise. I’m actually quite good at this and, you know, but, you know, something empty bucket sometimes. What you think you want when you get it my daughter’s in Lee gym mast. She’s got more gold men. She’s got so many gold medals. It’s like it’s like Solomon, where you would pile up the silver. She’s got like, this big bottom drawer, you know, 55 medals. I would just Chuck them in. And what are you pursuing? What are you chasing are really just let’s be real with each other today.

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Let’s strip off the pretence and just, like, down and dirty heat of the day type stuff. Lee, God, I’m thirsty for this. Give me this water. Give me this water. And I wanted if it’s okay to open up the altar today, that what I’ve shared. And I just feel as though I shared it so inadequately. Honestly, I just Lee like, oh, God, I just in my speaking speak. But, you know, if you know that you you’re coming at you, you’re pursuing different things. And it’s not that any of those things are wrong.

00:40:58.860]
I mean, don’t don’t misunderstand me. Don’t feel me wrong. But you know that you’re asking something of whether it be business, whether it be your marriage or your relationship or your desire for a relationship or your bit. Or I don’t know. And there are so many things some people pursue education as if just having more knowledge is going to help them or Ministry. We think if we finally get in that pulpit or we do the worship leading at that Church, somehow we’ve made it. And, you know, we stand there and we feel just as empty standing on that stage as we did on the little stage in our cell group because we’ve never actually come and really made ourselves vulnerable.

00:41:46.200]
And said, Father, Oh, God. Now, my dad, do you and I had to begin to look because he was not there for me to fill the bucket anymore. He never did fill it emotionally. Never did. I mean, bless his heart. He tried, but I wouldn’t even let him to. It was like, I want it. And as soon as he whatever he tried to do, I would withhold because there was so much and forgiveness in my heart. And forgiveness can really block the fountain on the inside.

00:42:23.680]
I’m telling you, fear can really block the fountain. The sale said, what are some of the things that are blocking the fountain from springing up on the inside and watering this desert of our soul? Lord, what are some of the things? One of the things surprisingly said is this in some people’s hearts as a fear of terror, that like a fear of the future that somehow the future is terribly insecure, something to be feared and say it prevents you from really stepping out boldly and confidently because there’s a holding back on the inside.

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Inevitably, there is going to be people like the woman here at the well who are looking at relationships as a pool that they can come and drink from. And like I say, it’s not necessarily that those feelings and desires are inappropriate or wrong. But it’s just that the that they’re somehow rooted and entangled with other things that God wants to just untangle there as some guys here. You think, man, if only I could if I do this or be this, then the if then I want to tell you if the certainly my experience is, you know, I’ve been in the if I’ve come to the ten and I’m at

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the other side of it.

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And I’m like, what? Give me a break. And what I’m realising is it’s right now, it’s right now. Jesus is here right now. And if you want to come and just drink at the well, you stand up and you come and you stand here this morning and, well, Lee, where the Holy Spirit leads us. Yeah. Just come up. God wants to bring us to complete wholeness. He wants us to come. Yeah. Just come as a whole person and that that is the thing that I guess I’ve been discovering.

00:45:14.730]
I’ve been discovering that I’m a whole person. I’m not just a spirit, not just a body. I’m not just a soul. I am. I am me. I am David, you know, boots and all warts and all emotions and all questions and all the whole package. You know, you get me. You get the whole package. And God’s, like I’ve been waiting for so long for this. I’ve been waiting for so long where you would quit coming as some more or something other than what you are. I want you to come just with everything, everything that you are.

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We’re not trying. We’re not trying. We’re not trying. We’re really doing it. Father Lee, come this morning to the well to see yourself coming to that well and see Jesus see Jesus. And he’s there offering the same thing that he offered to this woman who came. He said, Give me a drink. And she said, you know, well, how you going to get water? You got nothing to draw with. And he said, you know, if you knew who I was, you would have asked me. And I would have given you living water that’s going to spring up on the inside of you.

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And I want in Jesus name, my prayer today is that we unlock something on the inside, unlock a spring, dislodge things that stand in the way of that living water flowing and bringing saturation and satisfaction, not just to your inner man, not just to your spirit man, but to your soul. It is going to spill over into your emotions. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully, it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.Com. Have a great day.