"Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." (Luke 6:38)
Out of our selves
I love this as a rule. As a rule, I love it. I think, though, that the underlying message is just to go ahead and be generous. To give out of a pure heart and a pure motive. We are not meant to only retain that which God has gifted to us. The things He gives may require a little gestation, a little incubation. And the Father certainly wants the gift to bless us before we while it away on an unsuspecting other. I am reminded of the whole "neither cast ye your pearls before swine" paradigm (Matthew 7:6). But when it comes to God-through-us, it's all about flow. The Holy Ghost needs both a vessel and also a conduit. Something to fill and to flow through. God is eminently personal, but beyond that, He merely needs a warm body through which He wants to bless and build and help and heal. "He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30) as it were.
Paul speaks: "I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase." (1 Corinthians 3:6)
Because you can only take so much. You can only process and handle so much. I get overwhelmed easily and what little time off I have, if it's already scheduled out beyond my ken, I get cranky. I do pray, at times, that God would use me how He would. I would also say that I'm at where I am in life because I did the same way back when. But I am still just one person. Upon realizing this, God attentuates a little. I feel Him ease, or, at least my preconception of what He's like. And I also realize I am only one person and He has fires He's lit all around me and all over the world. There's always something going on. If I've strayed into the non-specific, it only goes to show you that I can't even keep track of the point I was trying to make. So broad is this thing called, well, here's Paul speaking again:
"And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." (Ephesians 3:19-20)
You do what you can with what God has given you. And He'll keep you filled to overflowing but also comfortably in the hollow of His hand all the while.