"Thou Anointest My Head with Oil: My Cup Runneth Over"
A shepherd must needs be a physician also. In the belt of the shepherd medicines are always carried. Sheep are very susceptible to sicknesses of many kinds, particularly fevers. Ofttimes at night as the sheep passed into the fold the shepherd's knowing eye would detect that one or another of them was sick and feverish. Perhaps it had been bitten by a serpent or torn by some wild animal. He would take the feverish sheep and plunge its head into clear, cold water, plunging the head so far into the pail that the water would run over, or anoint the bruise with mollifying ointment. Doubtless David is thinking of this experience of his shepherd life.
Or, again, David may be referring to the bountiful water supply provided for the sheep and applying it to the rich provision God has made for the believer. Not only is there grace enough for oneself, but with the believer as a channel, an abundance for others.
Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in Thee I find!
—Charles Wesley
This is the wonderful truth taught by Jesus in the Temple: "Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water." Here we see how the believer may come to Christ for the quenching of his own thirst, and then draw on, or drink more deeply of, Christ for the quenching of the thirst of others. "Thou, O Christ, art all I want, more than all in Thee I find." Here we have the personal and relative side of a consecrated life of service.
My cup is to "run over." No selfish religion must I claim. I am to be satisfied with Christ first myself, then I am to take from Him so large a supply that others with whom I come into contact may also partake of His fullness. No hermit, no ascetic, monk, or recluse would the Master have me be.
There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the peace of their self-content;
There are souls, like stars, that dwell apart
In a fellowless firmament.
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran—
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by—
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I,
I would not sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban—
Let me live in the house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I see from my house by the side of the road,
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife;
But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears—
Both parts of an infinite plan—
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.