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If your Thoughts only Flow by Drops, You Can’t Pour them out in Bucketfuls

December 28, 2024

If your Thoughts only Flow by Drops, You Can’t Pour them out in Bucketfuls

There is a book called John Ploughman’s Pictures published back in the 1890’s, or about the time my Grandpa Swayze was born. It was written by C.H. Spurgeon and was part of Moody’s Colportage Library. Spurgeon was a great English preacher, and a fitting contributor to the library.

Most of the books in the collection were more serious, but Spurgeon contributed two books in the voice of John Ploughman who was a simple farmer who had good common sense. Spurgeon would fill these chapters with figures of speech and come to the point that he desired.

The title above is one of these little phrases in the chapter, “If the Cap Fits, Wear It.” The title in itself is a wonderful piece of wisdom, in that we tend to go around fitting caps to other people’s heads other than our own. In the story, there was a rather foolish man who thought if he overheard something, it must be about him. He wasn’t too bright, and so the phrase in our title above: If your thoughts only flow by drops, you can’t pour them out by the bucketfuls.

I remember in seminary having to write long papers for several classes. I often had the sense that I was writing more words than there was knowledge in my head. I still have that sense when someone asks for a sudden bit of advice, and I have to say something on the spot.
Good talkers and good thinkers are two separate things. Yes, they can rarely be combined in one person, but you should not assume that it is so. The number of good talkers far outnumbers the number of good thinkers.

Have you had the experience of noticing that some of the people who speak least seem to have had the most to say? I can think of a gentleman in our church that fits the category, and one of the early board members during the time on the Lake Ann Board. They could go a whole meeting with hardly saying a word, but when they did speak, everyone listened. Why? Because they had been thinking. Their words would seem to be only drops, pregnant with meaning, but it was because of the bucketfuls in their minds.

But we have also been in the presence of the person who continually chatters and says nothing, or nothing of value, or nothing true. It is as though they just cannot handle a moment of silence, so on they go, driving those around to seek shelter by suddenly remembering they had an urgent appointment.

Just as Spurgeon could steer his character, John Ploughman, to a point worth making, let me try and do the same.

Jesus, who took on human flesh and was born as a baby has always existed as the eternal Son of God. On earth, He came to live in perfect righteousness, fulfilling the Law at every point, and thus being in a position to offer for us the perfect and blameless sacrifice for our sins. That blamelessness extended to His words, all of them.

Jesus never wasted a word. He never spoke an unthought word. He may have been misunderstood, but the failure was on the part of the listener, not the Speaker. His words were backed by bucketfuls of wisdom and knowledge, more than the hearer could ascertain. In fact, we seek to read them and hear them over and over, so that we might glean more of the intended meaning. And we never get to the bottom.

On the other hand, as I think back over my own words, so many are wasted, so many wrongheaded, so many for the wrong reason. And that’s why we need a Savior – someone to do well what we so often do so poorly. Perhaps I could say along with Spurgeon, if the cap fits, wear it.

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