Overflow

Samantha Stephenson shares what a disaster reveals about our brokenness and God’s love.  

If you clicked on this expecting a feel-good piece about God’s graces overflowing, I apologize for the story you’re about to hear. This story is about as unspiritual as it gets. This is a story about a toilet.  

This morning, I opened the door to the kids’ bathroom and was met with an unexpected sight: my toddler standing ankle-deep in liquid. Like all toddlers who sense that their mother is otherwise occupied, she busied herself emptying the toilet paper into the toilet. Flush after flush, she turned the toilet into a fountain, flooding the bathroom floor. And did I mention that the toilet hadn’t been flushed before her waterworks? 

Revulsion overwhelmed me. The smell alone was enough to make me gag. There are few words to describe the shock of finding my little girl bathing herself in dirty toilet water. I had no choice but to enter that bathroom myself, to scoop her up, and make her clean again.  

And while exteriorly I was screaming, my inner writer couldn’t help but take note.  

Because isn’t this exactly what Jesus does for us?  

Jesus Came into a Messy World

He descends into our mess — the sinful conditions we immerse ourselves in. Saint Paul tells us that “he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Philippians2:7). He humbled Himself to become a victim of our sin, to make us clean. 

Like my toddler blissfully bathing in toilet water, we don’t even realize what a mess we have made for ourselves, or how dangerous that mess can be. We dabble in forbidden things, mistaking them for harmless indulgences. If we don’t stop to ask why God prohibits these things we delight in, we end up mistaking toilet water for a bubble bath. Unless someone swoops in to save it, it will surely poison us.  

Of course, unlike my toddler, Jesus offers us a choice.  

He reaches out with tenderness, inviting us to be washed clean. But we turn away, insisting on our own way. We want our truth, even if it blinds us to reality. 

Why, Lord, do you let us sit in our own toilet water? Why do you let us make ourselves sick? Doesn’t it make you sick just to watch us? Doesn’t it break your heart?  

Still, you wait.  

You reach out your arms and you speak words of tenderness to us. We turn away. We close our eyes and cover our ears. We insist on our own way.  

I suppose this is why you say, “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it,” (Luke 11:28). They are like the children who hear that they are sitting in filth — and reach up to be carried away and washed clean. Their natural bend towards obedience means that they are cleaned quickly, warm and dry and snuggling under fluffy covers, while the rest of us shiver with goosebumps and feel our stomach churn with nausea.  

We want things our own way, and we are willing to blind ourselves to continue on preaching “our truth,” forever denying that our bubble bath smells like a toilet. Eventually, we have to decide: Is “our truth” worth dying for?   

Or are we willing to abandon ourselves to the Savior, whatever that might cost us?  

The Gospel Is Not Comfortable

Many preach an easy, convenient gospel — a Jesus indifferent to the state of our souls. They discard the uncomfortable bits of the Bible, keeping only warm and fuzzy teachings. But these lies are more poisonous than toilet water. Jesus warns us,

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.” (Matthew 10:28)  

They want to keep the Jesus who extends mercy to the adulteress but delete the Jesus who overturns tables at the Temple.  

And it might be easy to assume that I’m referring to certain political and immoral movements in popular culture — and I am, on one level. But I think more important for us who claim to be Christ’s followers is to look inwards, to examine our own lives, to see where it is that we’re holding tightly to having things our own way.  

What is it that we are unwilling to surrender? Where, if any, are the points of tension in our own behavior and the Gospel?  

And lest you are as tempted to gloss over that question as I would be on the receiving end of this reflection, let me casually remind us both:

If we say, “We are without sin,” we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing. If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10).  

So, wherever you find yourself this week — in muck or mess — reach up to Jesus. Let Him make you clean again. His grace is greater than any toilet water we’ve bathed in.  

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Copyright 2025 Samantha Stephenson
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