We are all familiar with the words from the beautiful and comforting twenty-third Psalm, "My cup runneth over," but we are often inclined to associate this running over with those times when our blessings seem unusually abundant. This attitude of thought stems from the erroneous belief that a kind but incomprehensibly whimsical deity fills our cup at times, but at other periods withholds benefits for some unknown disciplinary purpose, so that our cup is empty or merely half filled. No one who has seriously studied Christian Science would deliberately say that God is withholding good from him; but much of human thinking is not deliberate, and without carefully examining our thoughts we may-have fallen into an unnoticed habit pattern, wherein we unconsciously assume that the good we need is not possible of achievement under the circumstances prevalent in our experience. Thus without intending to do so we are, in belief, limiting God's goodness, and this belief is based on a misunderstanding of God and incidentally of what our cup is.
One day the writer was pondering Mary Baker Eddy's question (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 2), "Shall we plead for more at the open fount, which is pouring forth more than we accept?" when she was struck by the amusing picture of someone standing before the mighty roaring Niagara Falls with a small cup to be filled. Of course it would be filled—and running over! Moreover, if the individual took a large barrel to the Falls, it would likewise run over. Our cup is really always running over with God's largess, even though our need seems not met, for it is the size of the receptacle we hold up that determines the extent of good we receive. Are we perhaps holding up only a thimble? If so, no wonder our blessings seem small and unsatisfying. It is not the source that is at fault, for it is always "pouring forth more than we accept."
Our cup then is our mental attitude, and it would certainly reward us to learn how to enlarge our cup. It would seem to have been this very idea which impelled the prophet Isaiah to admonish his people (54: 2, 3), "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left." Was he not using the people's nomadic form of dwelling as an illustration to point the need for greater receptivity, purity, and an increased faith in God's goodness?
